


Away From Home

by rapgodyoungjae



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band), TWICE (Band)
Genre: Canon, Canon Compliant, Crack, F/M, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, crackship, idolverse, lowkey side ships, seventwice, svtwice
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-07-14 14:35:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 59,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7175885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rapgodyoungjae/pseuds/rapgodyoungjae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes all a person needs is someone who gets it.</p><p>(This story is written such that you only have to be into one of the fandoms to understand it.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one

Jun is fooling around with his group members backstage after their pre-recording when he hears a familiar sound—Mandarin, accompanied by a Taiwanese lilt—from down the hall. A girl that he doesn’t fully recognize but who looks familiar is speaking in rapid Mandarin on the phone, laughing and saying “bye mom,” as his group approaches. Her stage costume is emblazoned with _Twice_ , a group he has heard of but hadn’t looked into with the constant chaotic schedules of his groups’ promotions.

She looks up from her phone after hanging up, eyes cutting through the crowd in front of Jun to meet his. He squeezes by his group members and approaches her.

“Hi, I’m Wen Junhui of Seventeen,” he says in Mandarin, bowing.

“Zhou Tzuyu, of Twice. I just debuted. Nice to meet you, sunbaenim,” she bows, smiling nervously at his abrupt greeting. He is handsome, wearing a white suit with his hair swept back, and he doesn’t seem the least bit nervous to approach her.

“Don’t worry. It’ll all get easier,” he says with a half-smile. She smiles brightly and bows, thanking him for the encouragement.

“Aish, Jun, come on,” Seungcheol calls after him, the rest of his group 20 metres down the hall from him now. They’re on the way to a pre-show recording segment, so he has no choice but to follow. Jun turns to Tzuyu as he walks away.

“If you ever need a Chinese-speaking friend, I’ll be around.” He says, before turning to jog and catch up with his group. Tzuyu stares after him for a minute, a little in awe.

“Tzuyu-yah, come in for a picture!” Nayeon comes out of their dressing room, leading her by the wrist back into the room.

Tzuyu smiles and thinks of Junhui later, when she hears his group’s song playing quietly over the dressing room speakers. He’s the first sunbae to approach her like that so far, and it makes the whole process seem a little less daunting.

 

Later on in the week, she sees Junhui again. They are both waiting side stage as the group before them performs for their pre-recording. She pulls at her costume, fidgeting in anxiety.

“Tzuyu, fighting!” Jun says, approaching her. “You nervous?”

“Ah, no, never,” she says unconvincingly. Jun smirks.

“Just look for the red light and do exactly what you practiced. You’ll make a strong impression regardless.”

“What does _that_ mean?” she says a bit incredulously, leaning away from him.

“I only meant that you’ll turn out fine on camera, so long as you smile like the other day,” Jun replies, a little flustered. He must not have realized that she’s joking.

 _The other day. He’d remembered her smile?_ She’d heard it a hundred times from her family, her friends, her members, and the company how she looked. But it was all from an evaluative, _how do we sell this?_ , or biased personal perspective. Jun saying it felt different. She barely knew him and had barely spoken to him at all, and here he was, acting familiar and telling her that she’d look good onstage if she just smiled. 

“Seventeen, please take the stage,” a voice comes over the loudspeaker.

“That’s me,” Jun says, setting his water down.

“Seventeen fighting,” she says with a smile as he leaves. He grins back, returning the _fighting_ gesture before running up the stairs two at a time to join his group onstage.

 

Later that night she is waiting in the hallway for her unnies to pack their things so that they can head to their next schedule. It has been a long day, but if these last few days are any indication then their days while promoting are going to stay tiresome. After a few minutes of waiting she leans on the wall, sinking to the floor when her tiredness get the best of her.

A pack of boys and staff passes by her, and in her exhaustion she doesn’t look up until someone crouches in front of her. It’s Jun; his t-shirt and ripped jeans juxtapose his stage outfits from earlier and the made-up face that he still wears.

“Zhou, this is Minghao,” Jun says, gesturing up towards another boy with curly blonde hair who stands next to him. He is slim and looks like he is being swallowed by his big jacket, and he waves cutely when she looks at him.

“Hello, I’m Minghao of Seventeen,” he says in Mandarin, bowing to her. “Ah you don’t need to get up!” Minghao says when she tries to stand. She ignores his polite words and gets up, bowing to him. 

“Zhou Tzuyu, of Twice,” she says. “Nice to meet you, sunbae-nim.”

“We’re wrapping up promotions but us Chinese-speakers need to stick together. Do you have weibo?” Jun says, his voice dropping off quietly at the end. “We have a group chat that we can add you to.”

She does have a private weibo, but is hesitant to give it out just now. All she needs is for the security to be compromised once and she’d have to start over from scratch, adding her family and close friends from back home, and worst-case scenario the company might find out and ban her from it altogether.

“Give me yours,” she replies instead. Jun raises his eyebrows at her, but pulls out a piece of paper and jots down his username.

“Don’t go giving this out,” he replies when he hands it to her.

“Not even to the right bidder?” she quips before she can think much about it. Jun and Minghao laugh.

“Jun, let’s get going,” Minghao says, and all three look to see the boys’ group and staff halfway down the hall.

Minghao and Jun say goodbye and leave Tzuyu behind, running to catch up with their group members.

“What was that?” Jihyo says, as she exits the dressing room, staring after the two. Tzuyu slowly and surreptitiously crumples the weibo ID in her hand.

“Some new Chinese friends, I think,” she says, smiling. Finally, maybe someone she can communicate with freely, no language barrier to muddle things.

 

She doesn’t see Jun or Minghao backstage at their music show recording the next week. She didn’t admit it to herself, but she had been looking forward to it. Ever since coming to Korea, making friends has been hard. Her Korean was getting better, but it was still difficult to understand and make jokes, and she missed being able to communicate her full meaning without thinking so hard about what she was hearing or about to say. She had spoken to Jackson some, but his variety schedules had made it difficult to cross paths, and she hadn’t gotten any other way to communicate with him other than in person yet. She had spent some time with her sunbaes Jia and Fei, but both had activities in China often enough that she didn’t see them much. They were still intimidating to her, besides. At least she and Fei were able to keep up a little bit before, but these days Tzuyu was so busy that she didn’t know when she’d next be able to see her next. 

 

It’s a rare moment at the dorm where Tzuyu and the rest of her members have a rest. They’ve all come home—it’s midnight now, an early night for them—and all are changing into their pajamas. She’s been considering adding Jun on weibo for a few days now, and has decided that she needs to just _do it_. Her roommates are occupied—Dahyun is in the shower and Chaeyoung is listening to music in bed—so she seizes the opportunity to use the groups’ computer for a few minutes.

She sends him a somewhat cryptic message that he’ll receive once he adds her, to conceal her identity so that only he will know who it is.

_Weibo_

_Tzuyu, 12:14am: Hello, it’s Zhou who you met in the hallway the other day and told to smile before going onstage. I hope you are resting well these days~_

She reads over the message, editing it a few times before it’s satisfactory enough that she presses ‘send’. This is her first friend that she’s made outside of her company in a while, and her heart is beating quickly in nervousness. She tries to squelch it down in herself thinking, _it’s just making a friend; it’s not such a big deal_. But still, her first friend that she’s made after debut feels like it holds some significance.

There’s a soft knock at the door before Sana opens it.

“Tzuyu-yah, when you’re done with the computer please let me know. I need to message my mom,” Sana says, her usually light and cheerful voice grainy with a cold.

Tzuyu quickly logs off and closes the browser, snapping the computer shut.

“Here, unnie. It’s all yours for the night. I should be getting to my exercise anyway,” Tzuyu stands and hands it off to her.

“Wah, Tzuyu, you’re so dedicated,” Chae says from her bed, already in her pajamas.

Maybe it seems like that to the others, but Tzuyu still feels like she doesn’t measure up yet.

 

_Weibo—group chat_

_Tzuyu 2:30am: I’m featuring on the dance break today O_O :D_

_Jun, 2:33am: Tzuyu fighting! I know you’ll do great. Remember to smile~ ^_^_

It’s late November now. They’ve messaged a bit in the past few days but the encouragement warms her heart nonetheless. Twice is headed to Jeju for Inkigayo soon, and she’s surprised that Jun is still awake to respond. She messages a friend from back home and her mom, too, but Jun is the only one to respond before she has to pack into the car with the rest of her group members. The car ride to Jeju will be a while, and they start out the trip excited but one by one everyone slips into a slumber, and Tzuyu eventually follows.

She messages Jun back and forth over the next few days outside of the group chat, mostly to ask him advice, and to tell him updates or silly anecdotes. Sometimes when they’re both online to chat a while, they talk about their hometowns, or things that have been strange since coming to Korea and their wishes for the future. Sometimes she finds herself thinking up things to message him just so she can have something to say. He always responds brightly, and tells her about the special stages that he’s working on with his group for the end of the year festivals and their concerts, or what he did that day.

In the group chat, Minghao is cute and witty, giving Tzuyu encouragement, telling funny stories, and occasionally sending hilariously embarrassing pictures of Jun. Tzuyu likes Minghao a lot, and hopes that his personality will translate well to real life since she barely got to meet with him.

 

It’s nearly December now. She knows she’ll get to see both Jun and Minghao at the end of the year ceremonies, which she still can’t believe she’ll be performing at. Twice has done astonishingly well over the last month—better than she ever could’ve hoped for—and they’re being called super rookies. Seventeen is too, Tzuyu thinks with a little pride; she’s happy for her friends. A month feels like a long time not to have seen them, but she hasn’t seen anyone aside from her members and staff with consistency over the last few weeks.

Jun is happy to see messages from Tzuyu, as inconsistently as they come. Sometimes its 2am, or sometimes it’s during the daytime, but now that the group is on hiatus he has some time to answer. For now, Jun is learning dance routines for their year-end stages, which consists of many long days of practice but it’s still easier than their busy promotional schedules.

It’s late on a Sunday night when his phone dings.

_Weibo_

_Tzuyu, 2:30am: I want chinese food T_T_

_Jun, 2:32am: I know a good restaurant in Hongdae~_

_Tzuyu, 2:33am: open this late?_

_Jun, 2:34am: of course, it’s Seoul ㅋㅋㅋ_

_Jun, 2:35am: I’m hungry too. Let’s go._

Her heart beats faster at the thrilling idea of it. Going out this late? To meet a boy? She knows that fans and media sites generally leave private lives alone, and if she goes out with a mask and hat… maybe. She’s in the quiet living room, but pokes her head in to her room to see a sleeping Chae and Dahyun. They don’t have music show recordings tomorrow, just dance practice at 10am, so Tzuyu goes with her gut, grabbing a pair of jeans, a mask, hat and a nondescript black coat.

Back in the living room, she messages Jun.

_Weibo_

_Tzuyu, 2:40am: I’m in. Where should we meet?_

 

She’s not sure of the directions so Jun is coming to her. She goes out the back entrance of the apartment building to evade any possible stragglers waiting to take her picture, because they could still be there even at this ungodly hour.

She stands in the cold, shivering with her hands in her pockets. A tall, thin man wearing a black mask approaches her, and he’s wearing the green jacket that he said he would be over chat.

“Junhui!” she stands up, bowing to him again. As much as they’ve talked online, it’s free of the formalities of real life, and she finds herself at a loss for how to greet him, whether to do it with Korean formalities or not, and whether to treat him as a friend or use age distinctions.

He bows back, and reaches for her arm to turn her in the direction that they’re heading, which is still a mystery to her.

“Where are we going?” She asks, jogging a few steps to catch up to him.

“Just trust me, Zhou,” he says, nudging her with his shoulder.

She purses her lips, casting him a suspicious sidelong glare. But she does let him lead the way.

They walk for about 10 minutes, chatting about what they’ve done over the last few days, before stopping in front of a small shop with a red neon sign.

Jun holds the door for her, and she steps inside. The interior of the shop is decorated with ornate fabrics, screens and plants, which juxtapose the cheap yellow glow of light and dingy white tiles.

“Hello, Auntie,” Jun says, hugging the tiny older lady who greets them at the front.

“How have you been, my Junhui? Where is Minghao? It has been too long. I hope you boys have been eating well without me.” She answers in Mandarin, her voice gravelly with age.

“Minghao is resting after our long practice today. But Auntie, why are you still awake too?” Jun steps back, removing his mask. Tzuyu’s fingers raise to touch hers, but she decides against removing it just this yet. Even though it’s the middle of the night in a tiny Chinese shop, she feels like there might always be someone watching.

“Aish, you know I can get more done at night, Junhui.” The auntie waves her hand dismissively at Jun’s concern. She then turns her attention to Tzuyu, not having recognized her. Jun hurriedly introduces her.

“Auntie, this is my friend from Taiwan.” He says, and Tzuyu bows low in greeting.

She glances hesitantly at Jun, not sure she should use her real name, but he reads her worried look and says, “it’s okay, you can trust her. She protects Minghao and me well.”

“Zhou Tzuyu,” she bows again, and the auntie smiles kindly but does not seem to recognize her.

“Nice to meet you. Here, both of you, come sit,” she walks towards a booth with a sliding door, and Tzuyu notices that all of the booths on one side of the restaurant are closed off. It’s nice to have something private in a public place like this. She and Jun settle in on either side of the booth.

“I’ll bring you some tea,” the Auntie nods, and Jun smiles and bows with thanks before she shuts the sliding door on them. Jun takes off his hat, settling in.

“You can take off your disguises too, if you want,” he suggests with a grin. Tzuyu realizes that she is still completely covered, wearing her hat and mask with her hair tucked back in a braid. She takes off the mask and hat, and pulls off her hair tie to shake her hair out. She’s still getting the hang of sneaking around. It feels weird that there’s so much of her life that she feels like she has to be extremely careful about now.

She doesn’t know what to say to Jun. When she is messaging him, she can revise and plan out what she wants to say, but in person she feels nervous, like she used to and sometimes still does in front of cameras. She sits on her hands to keep from fidgeting, but thankfully Jun doesn’t seem to notice, as he is unstacking their dishes for tea.

It has barely been 30 seconds but the auntie is back in a flash, rapping at their door to deliver the tea.

“Thank you, Auntie,” Jun nods, taking the tray from her and setting it on the table. The door slides shut and he pours tea for the both of them.

“So, how do you feel about being called the next _So Nyuh Shi Dae_?” he asks blowing on her tea to cool it before handing it to her. She hesitates for a moment before accepting it, taken aback by the abrupt, straightforward question.

“I don’t know, how do you feel about being called the next _Super Junior_?” she retorts, deflecting the question.

“Truthfully?” he asks, a tiny half-smile tugging on the corner of his mouth.

“Yes, truthfully. And I don’t really mean the _‘I’m so humbled and grateful to be compared to my sunbae-nim,’_ that you’d say in an interview. How do you really feel?”

“Well,” he sets down his cup, folding his hand in front of him. “I _am_ humbled and grateful. None of that is a lie. But it’s exhilarating. I want to believe it but I try to temper it with doubt because what if it doesn’t come true? What if we fizzle out? This worry is always in the back of my mind. But all the same, it makes it feel like everything was worth it. All of the learning Korean, being away from my family for so long, and years of waiting for debut. Our debut kept getting pushed back and pushed back again, for years. It started to feel hopeless, like it would never happen.”

He fidgets with his teacup, eyes drifting down to his tea and focusing there like he’s looking for his fortune in the cup. 

“I know I’m not the most popular member or anything, but my groups’ success feels like a dream. I want to believe we can go the distance, and it’s exciting but still… intimidating.”

Jun looks up shyly at her. He’s seemed so confident to her thus far that she hadn’t realized that he would feel just as daunted by success as she did.

“I know what you mean,” she says, stirring her tea aimlessly. “With success comes pressure. Being compared to these big groups creates a huge expectation to live up to. I thought I would be happy if we were successful, and I am, but with every new success I feel like I have more to prove.”

She drops the spoon, slumping back in her booth.

“And I shouldn’t be complaining about this. Really, I should not, and it’s not humble of me to say. But I am the most popular member, and it’s an immense amount of pressure.”

Jun sips from his tea, waiting for her to continue.

“I almost wasn’t added to the group. I stood on stage at the end of our survival show after JYP PD-nim announced who would be in the group, and I wasn’t in it. I had my heart prepared for that moment, but it still crushed me. And then even after he did announce me as part of the group, he said he didn’t understand why I was so popular but that it was the only reason I was being added. I think about that every day. My unnies are so much more talented than me and then here I am, stealing the spotlight from them. I feel guilty. I feel like I don’t deserve to be in the group.”

She stares at the tiny fountain embedded in the wall, water raining down over a small stone Buddha and draining in rivulets down the rocks beneath him. 

Jun is quiet until he’s sure she’s finished, then speaks.

“Well, I think it goes like this. There’s often a member that attracts a lot of attention, and once they see your group they’ll stick around for everyone else. Mingyu and Wonwoo are like that for us. I don’t resent them for their popularity, because it’s not like they’re taking it away from me. If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t have as much attention as we do, and I wouldn’t get as many opportunities to perform for people as I do if it weren’t for them. And for you, your fans still buy your albums and come to your live shows, which helps your members. So if you think of it that way, even though you feel bad about the situation, you are really doing something good for them.”

She smiles weakly at Jun. She has tried to convince herself of the same thing, but it feels more validating and concrete to hear it from someone else, especially someone in the position opposite to hers in her group.

“Thank you,” Tzuyu says sincerely. Then there is a knock at the door, and Jun’s eyes flick away from hers. He slides it open.

“Wah, what’s this?” Tzuyu says as the auntie sets plates of food down at their table. They hadn’t ordered anything.

“Auntie knows,” Jun says, smirking knowingly at her. Realistically, the food being placed in front of her is exactly what she had been envisioning when she had messaged Jun earlier that night. Begrudgingly, she smiles at him, and then thanks the auntie for the food.

It feels like the spell from earlier was broken, and she is now shy thinking of how she had just poured out everything she was feeling to Jun. She had felt fine doing it because of his honesty, but now she thinks about how poorly it would reflect on her and the group if anyone else knew.

“Jun, what I said earlier—,” she pokes at her food with her chopsticks, picking for a bite.

“Don’t worry, Tzuyu. Your secret is safe with me,” Jun smiles, before looking down at his food to dig in. Her heart flutters a little, happy and surprised that she doesn’t have to say what she’s thinking for him to know. What were the chances that her first idol friend would understand her this well? She smiles at Jun, who is focused completely on his food at the moment, and then digs in too.


	2. two

Jun hasn’t slept more than 4 hours per night in the last week while preparing for the MAMAs, so when he takes to the plane he crashes, hard, and doesn’t wake up until they’re close to landing. His group is filming a behind the scenes video for Mnet, so the makeup staff get to work with touchups on everyone once they arrive at their room at the airport, and then they’re off to explore the streets of Hong Kong.

Filming behind the scenes footage is fun because it means that they’re guaranteed time to play around, eating dinner and exploring before they have to rehearse yet again. Jun grew up near Hong Kong and feels in his element, leading his members confidently and communicating with people in both Canto and Mando as the groups representative. He overhears Woozi say to a camera that he feels safe because of the Chinese members, and Jun is pleased that he could make it up to everyone for all of the times they’ve helped him when he felt lost.

Most of their waking hours in Hong Kong are spent in rehearsals. They have three performances to prepare for—one for the red carpet, one for a special stage of Mansae, and their collaboration stage—but they do have pockets of free time here and there. His parents come to the city the night before they perform, and he hasn’t seen his family in nearly a year so the time they spend together is precious. He gets to have dinner with them and his mom busies herself with nagging him and asking about his schedules for the next couple of days. He thought he would be annoyed but instead he’s glad she cares so much. He gets to see his little siblings and takes about a hundred pictures with them. His heart aches to see how much older they’ve grown in his absence.

He knows Twice is coming to the award show but tries to temper any excitement for that. He likely won’t even get to speak to Tzuyu, after all. It’s a huge event and tons of fancams get taken, even just of idols watching one another perform. They wouldn’t even be able to wave to one another in public, since that’s the stuff of scandal these days. He does practice extra hard for his performances, though. He knows she’ll be watching. He tells himself that he cares so much about the performance because he knows thousands, possibly millions of people will be watching, including his old schoolmates and friends from his hometown, and his family will be there.

 

The day of the event starts early, before dawn even. Seventeen squeezes in their last rehearsals and then attends final sound checks before being made up and coiffed, then dressed for the first time of many that day. It’ll likely be at least 24 hours before they’re able to sleep again.

There is a lot of waiting. Waiting for pictures, waiting for interviews, waiting for mic batteries to be replaced, waiting for their makeup and hair to be touched up. He jokes around and plays with his group members but he feels anxious all day and he can’t quite place his finger on why. There is a hum of excitement in the atmosphere, everything about the day charged with a nervous energy. 

He hadn’t heard about it ahead of time, but they are seated next to Twice for the award ceremony. The girls all stand to bow when Seventeen takes their seats, and Jun lets his eyes linger when they make contact with Tzuyu’s. He could swear he saw a tiny smile tug at the corner of her mouth but then she is looking away, continuing to bow at the horde of boys passing by. Later during the performances he has to keep himself from looking over to see her reaction. He knows that there are hundreds of eyes on them both and that rumors would end their friendship before it really had a chance to get off the ground.

The votes for the rookie awards are tight this year, down to the wire even since his members had last been able to check. Everyone in the group is restless, unwilling to voice their greed for the win but with hopeful hearts nonetheless. They have already done wildly better than their expectations since debut, but with every small triumph came the urgency to succeed further. He wonders about Tzuyu and Twice too, and allows himself to imagine for a moment that they’d both win rookie awards. It would be too good to be true.

 

And it is. Twice is the one to take home an award, and Seventeen congratulates them as they pass by. Only when they don’t receive the reward does he realize how high his hopes had been, but he reminds himself that they can’t win every time.

Late in the night, after the whole show has come to a close and Jun is back at his hotel, he messages Tzuyu in congratulations.

_Weibo group message:_

_Jun, 3:11am: congrats, Tzu :D You deserve it!_

_Tzuyu 3:13am: thank you ^_^ I still can’t believe we won :o_

He wonders if she feels bad that Seventeen didn’t win but hopes that she doesn’t. He wouldn’t want her success to be marred by feelings of guilt. The entertainment industry is cutthroat and they can’t win every time, and still have so much further to go to prove themselves.

_Weibo_

_Jun 3:20am: The river looks so pretty at night_

_Tzuyu, 3:21am: Where are you staying?_

_Jun, 3:21am: Hotel Icon, near Victoria Harbor_

_Tzuyu 3:22am: no way! Me too!_

_Jun, 3:22am: :o_

_Jun, 3:22am: want to go for a midnight stroll?_

_Tzuyu, 3:23am: it’s past midnight, silly :p_

_Jun, 3:23am: the offer still stands_

_Tzuyu, 3:24am: let’s do it~_

 

Wonwoo, Jun’s roommate, comments on his getting dressed to go out and glances up from his book curiously as Jun fixes his hair, but doesn’t ask questions about where he’s is headed.

“Yo Jun, think fast,” Wonwoo speaks up when Jun heads for the door, throwing a pack of gum at him.

“Yeah?” Jun catches it and looks up at Wonwoo, raising his eyebrows in question.

“Don’t do anything _too_ crazy,” Wonwoo cautions, and then breaks into a conspiratorial grin. 

“Thanks, mom,” Jun retorts sarcastically, but still pops a stick of gum in his mouth before tossing the pack back. He knows what Wonwoo is thinking, but it isn’t like that.

 

“How do you like Hong Kong?”

Boats rock quietly in the water surrounding them and distant lights glitter across the water, but otherwise the marina where they meet is placid and dark. They walk along the docks, which dip up and down underfoot following the easy chop of the bay.

“It’s weird. It’s like home, but not.” Tzuyu says, lazily placing one foot in front of the other as they meander slowly away from the shore.

“How do you mean?” Jun asks.

“Like I fell through the looking glass; it’s familiar, but fundamentally distorted. The language is the same and culturally it’s similar, but at the same time _so_ different. I feel like a bright-eyed country bumpkin in the big city for the first time, which is weird because I’m neither,” Tzuyu confesses. The sea breeze flutters her hair and she pulls her coat tighter to guard against the chill.

“I know what you mean. Obviously it’d be more familiar to me since I grew up in Shenzhen, but still I find myself mixing my languages. The reverse culture shock is stronger than I expected,” Jun replies. “It feels different. Not good or bad just… different.”

Tzuyu falls silent beside him. There is the hum of cars in the distance, and the water laps softly against the boats that flank either side of the walkway.

“You know what I mean?” he asks, looking over at her.

“Yeah, I do. Being here has made me realize that there’s truly no going back anymore. Maybe I’m being weird and dramatic in saying that; I don’t know. But I mean that my old life wouldn’t be there for me even if I wanted it to be,” Tzuyu says. She hadn’t been able to articulate the nebulous emotions of nostalgia and uncertainty she’s felt since they landed here until she’s able to say it out loud, but there it is. “It’s scary to let go and just… float.” 

He laughs, and it sounds a little bitter. Jun isn’t that type though; maybe she’s misinterpreting it.

“That’s growing up, though, isn’t it?” he replies. For a minute the only sound is the clicking of their shoes against the metal dock, as they both lose themselves in that thought.

“I know that,” Tzuyu says. “God, I’m painfully aware of how dramatic it all sounds. But you know, adults always say that young people are histrionic but I think it’s because they forget what it’s like to experience monumental changes for the first time. Navigating it all can be tricky, and it can feel like an uphill battle. I question everything I do. I don’t know how not to.”

“Questioning things is good. It means you’re not moving mindlessly through life,” Jun reassures her, “though the only bad end would come from inaction. Complacency is where dreams die.”

They reach the end of the dock now and she turns to Jun. “I can mourn the loss of something without wanting it back though, can’t I?” she replies, her lips scrunching to one side in uncertainty.

“Of course,” he says, leaning his elbows on the bars at the end of the walkway, the only thing separating them from the black open water before them.

“There’s no use in worrying if it’s for the better then, I guess. It’s the way it has to be,” she says morosely, staring off to the side.

“Hey now, there’s no need to be so glum about it.” He puts a hand on her shoulder, bending over to place his face into her line of vision so that she’ll look at him, lending poignancy to his next words. “The end of parts of your life makes way for better things, opportunities, and people to come into it.”

“People always say that, but how can you know?”

Instead of begrudgingly avoiding his gaze she now looks him fixedly in the eyes, almost as if she’s demanding an answer. As if he could give it to her with any modicum of certainty.

“You can’t. But you have to believe it for your own sanity,” he replies, eyes darting to the water. The dark swirling expanse before him must be more comforting to look at than her searching expression. “Even if you spend your life worrying that ruin might come from everything you do, the worrying won’t stop it happening. It’ll sure as hell spoil things even if it all turns out to be fine, though. You keep the faith because it’s the way you survive.”

“Better things, better people,” she repeats faintly, calling back to his previous statement.

“Like me,” Jun remarks, posing cutely at her to break the heavy atmosphere. Tzuyu rolls her eyes, turning away from him to make her way back down the walkway.

“Hey!” Jun whines at her lack of response, jogging to catch up to her and tugging on her arm.

“Like you,” Tzuyu concedes easily, playfully shoving him away by the shoulder. He teeters close to the edge of the walkway towards the water then catches himself, swerving back towards her as he keeps pace.

“But _not_ like _you,”_ he says in faux-annoyance. Tzuyu pulls him in, looping her arm through his.

“C’mon Jun, you don’t mean that,” she challenges.

“Psh,” he tutts, trying halfheartedly to shake her off. She just holds tighter.

 

December hits with full force, which for Jun means endless hours of practice to prepare for their concert and special stages.

One night his team is up late, preparing for their special stage at The Show. The opportunity to be back on broadcast is an exciting prospect, but they’re all perfectionists so practice goes until deep into the night considering how early they need to wake up.

“Ok, let’s take a drink and then we’ll record,” Hoshi says after a good run through. Jun takes a seat on the floor next to Minghao, who is some kind of mutant because he’s barely sweating. Jun’s shirt, on the other hand, was sacrificed to the dance gods hours ago.

“Five more hours,” Minghao notes mournfully as he takes a drink of water. It’s midnight, and he’s referring to the time that they need to wake up for their schedules tomorrow.

“But then we’ll get go see everyone,” Jun says cheerfully, shaking Minghao by the shoulder, who sulks.

“You mean we’ll get to see Tzuyu,” Minghao quips back, switching to Mandarin.

“Aish, that’s not what I mean. We’ll get to see all of the staff, and the fans, and our friends who we haven’t seen in a while.” Jun waves his concerns off.

“….so you mean Tzuyu?” Minghao raises his eyebrows at Jun. Jun pushes him.

“Don’t be like that. We’re just friends.” Jun retorts.

“Didn’t know you met up secretly with your _‘just friends’?”_ Minghao replies. That startles Jun, and he’s not surprised that Minghao found out, but he does wonder which time he knows about and for how long he’s been sitting on that information. Minghao doesn’t seem to have told anyone else at least, and Jun counts himself lucky for having a friend who can keep a secret.

“You were asleep! Besides, she’s 3 years younger than me. I’d feel like a creepy old man if I thought that way,” Jun brushes off Minghao’s suggestion. And he does feel like a creepy ahjussi whenever his mind starts to wander that direction. But he forces himself not to think like that, because they’re both in their debut year and have a lot of work to do to establish themselves, along with the fact that they barely get to see one another. That, and the fact that she’s 17, for god’s sake.

“Whatever you say, Jun.” Minghao stands to join the others in the center, where they are going through moves one last time before the recording. “But still, 3 years is not that much.” Minghao says, before turning away to join the others.

Jun caps his water and joins them too, annoyed that he couldn’t think of a retort to Minghao, but he can’t stew over it for long because they have to get to recording their dance which requires his full focus. 

He strikes up a conversation with Wonwoo on the way back home, avoiding Minghao for the moment. Jun loves that kid but he may drive him crazy one day with those suggestions of his.

 

Jun had messaged Tzuyu the night prior to let her know that Seventeen would be performing a special stage on The Show the next day. Nearly a week has passed since they last saw one another in Hong Kong.

Tzuyu’s in the waiting room after their sound check but before their pre-recording, and her ears prick any time she hears Chinese-accented Korean.

“Tzuyu, you seem a bit jittery today,” Chaeyoung notices, handing her a bite of her kimbap. Tzuyu accepts it gratefully.

“Really?” Tzuyu says, munching on the kimbap, taking her time to swallow it down. She sits down on the couch, and tries to focus on engaging with her members. They get occupied with a round of the frying pan game, and just after Dahyun loses she hears the voices she had been waiting for.

She jumps up, heading to the door and hangs on the doorframe, waving to Jun and Minghao as they approach. There’s a third person with them who is dressed similarly to them, and she assumes must be one of their group members.

“Oppas!” she calls out, grinning at them. She runs up to them and bows at their accompanying member.

“Hello, I am Tzuyu of Twice,” she smiles. His eyes are small but kind, and his white hair fluffs out over a headband.

“Hi, I’m performance team leader Hoshi of Seventeen,” he bows to her, greeting her nervously.

Even though he’s her senior, she can tell he’s uncomfortable in her presence. Possessing a cold, chic look unfortunately has this effect on people more than Tzuyu would like. That coupled with her shyness in speaking Korean meant that she seemed standoffish to others, and so making friends has been hard, even with her group members at first.

“Nice to meet you, sunbae-nim,” she bows once more, then addresses Jun and Minghao again.

“Oppas, come meet my group members!” she says, tugging them by the wrists into her waiting room. Hoshi trails slightly behind them, a little unsure of if he is supposed to follow.

All of her group members stand and bow when the boys enter, tittering at Tzuyu’s holding them by the wrists.

“1, 2, 3, we are Twice!” The girls chime.

“Seventeen Hoshi,”

“Jun,”

“Minghao,” they all greet, bowing.

“Unnies, these are my Chinese friends and one of their group members,” Tzuyu turns to her members, smiling. Everyone breaks apart into a flurry of greetings, many bows and awkward, polite hellos exchanged.

“You guys are performing today? It’s good to see you!” Tzuyu says in Korean, approaching Jun and Minghao once they’ve greeted everyone. The coordis and makeup artist wrangle back many of the girls’ attention, but she notices Momo and Mina interacting with Hoshi. Momo and Mina do the signature pony and arm roll from ‘Mansae’ and Hoshi laughs and responds with choreography from ‘Like Ooh-Ahh’. It’s encouraging to see them getting along with one another.

“We’re performing at the Gayo Daejun this year. Will you be coming?” Minghao asks.

“We’re performing too,” Tzuyu bites at her nail. “Our first award show stage! It’s exciting but a little nerve-wracking.”

“You all do well onstage, so I’m sure it will be great,” Jun says. His hands are clasped behind his back and his eyes keep glancing around the room, surveying her group members. Tzuyu realizes in this moment just how many people are probably observing their interaction.

“We’re all busy, but we should meet up some day. I miss seeing someone other than the members and our staff,” she says in Mandarin now, which is easier anyway. Jun and Minghao laugh.

“We know the feeling,” Minghao says.

“As tight as you can be with your group members, sometimes you need to see someone else,” Jun adds in. Minghao elbows him, scoffing. “But not you, Minghao. I could _never_ get tired of you.” Jun wraps his arms around Minghao’s shoulders, and Minghao rolls his eyes, trying to nudge him off before eventually accepting it.

“Well, we won’t stay too long. It looks like we’re attracting some attention,” he says, and they all shift to look at Jungyeon, Jihyo and Nayeon who are sitting on the couch, all of whom immediately become extremely interested in the magazine Nayeon is holding.

“Hoshi-yah,” Jun calls, just as Hoshi is demonstrating his tissue-pulling choreography to Momo and Mina, who are following along. “Let’s head out.”

Hoshi turns to bow to Momo and Mina, who all clap softly and bow in their sudden awkward politeness.

“Goodbye, nice to meet you,” the three boys say, and the room is again a flurry of bowing as they exit.

 

“Omo, Tzuyu, I didn’t know that you knew boys,” Jungyeon says when they’ve walked out of earshot.

“It’s not like that,” Tzuyu says dismissively, taking a seat on the couch with her unnies. “They’re just Chinese-speaking friends. It’s good to have some that I can see in person.”

The rest of the girls nod and make noises of understanding when she says so. She knows it may seem suspicious because close friendships between boys and girls are not the norm, but she’s glad to have people she can talk to who totally get it. From the isolating experience of being a foreigner to the demands of being an idol, her friends understand what she is going through better than most.

 

“Girls!” Hoshi whispers when they’re out of earshot. “You know girls!? Girls who are that pretty?? Wah, I’m going crazy. You two are really something else.”


	3. three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you’re unfamiliar with either group, here’s info on everyone mentioned in this chapter (more than in passing). This info isn’t totally necessary but it can be a lot of people to keep up with, so it’s here for reference if you get lost.
> 
> 17  
> *Seungcheol—leader, responsible and fair, easily excitable, 1995  
> *Jeonghan—sass master, sneaky mofo who cheats at everything, lethargic often, 1995  
> Joshua—self-proclaimed “gentleman”, 1995  
> Hoshi—dance machine, part of the variety trio, prone to occasional shy moments, 1996  
> *Wonwoo—part-time rap god, full-time sloth, 1996  
> Dokyeom—smiles 24/7, part of 17’s variety trio with Hoshi and Seungkwan, main vocal, 1997  
> *Mingyu—self-proclaimed “visual dream tree”, child trapped in an adult male’s body, 1997  
> Seungkwan—moodmaker, main vocal, family name is Boo so he’s often referred to as MC Boo or Diva Boo, 1998
> 
> Twice  
> Nayeon—self-proclaimed “girl crush”, dorky 1995  
> *Jihyo—leader, easily excitable, loud, 1997  
> *Chaeyoung—rapper, nojam, has the most sweg, 1999
> 
> * = mentioned most often

The next week is filled with practices and schedules for the both of them; Twice is still promoting, Seventeen has solo concerts fast approaching, and both groups will perform at the year-end concerts. Still, Tzuyu, Jun and Minghao manage to meet up for lunch once. They visit the auntie at the Chinese restaurant and she is as kind and attentive as ever. Tzuyu wouldn’t order dessert for herself, but the boys ask for extra—red bean ice cream, her favorite—and goad her into sharing it with them. The meeting is a welcome reprieve from all of the serious preparations they’ve been doing, but an hour is all they can manage to squeeze in before it’s back to rehearsals and schedules for the both of them.

 

Later in the week on the car ride between a CF shooting and a dance practice, Tzuyu messages Jun.

_Weibo_

_Tzuyu, 8:20pm: What are you doing for Christmas this year?_

_Jun, 8:20pm: we have a concert! It’ll be fun but it’s a lot of work_

_Tzuyu 8:21pm : what!? Christmas should be a relaxing holiday that you spend with family and friends_

_Jun 8:21pm: not this year :/_

_Tzuyu, 8:22pm: I think we’ll have to do something about this_

_Tzuyu 8:22pm: when are you free?_

 

It’s midway through December when Tzuyu first visits Seventeen’s dorm. Her group members Chaeyoung and Jihyo come along with her in solidarity, though possibly with the secondary agenda of spying on her (Tzuyu hasn’t made her mind up on that one yet).

Jun was surprised how pristine the dorm became after he told the other guys that _girls_ were coming over. He and Minghao didn’t find it to be as much of a big deal as the Korean members certainly did. Seungcheol especially was reminding the others to clean their things up. One might even go so far as to call it nagging.

A rap comes at the door, and Minghao opens it to find Tzuyu and two other vaguely familiar girls on their doorstep.

“Hi, I’m Chaeyoung,” a petite girl with short, bouncy hair says. She’s wearing big hoop earrings, a hat and a leather moto jacket, and is chewing on a piece of gum in a lazy manner that her polite introduction belies.

“I’m Jihyo,” a girl with cherry red hair and enormous eyes says cheerfully, arms wiggling with her fists shoved in the pockets of her coat.

Both bow to Minghao and the boys in the living room, which is a flood of greetings as always.

Jun is fixing his hair in the bathroom when he hears the commotion, and quickly tidies up the area and joins the others in the living room. Woozi and Vernon are absorbed in a video game, and Tzuyu and two of her group members are making small talk with Minghao along with Seungcheol and Wonwoo, who are seated on the couch.

“Tzuyu!” Jun calls out, pulling her in for a hug. A palpable silence settles over the group, and he pulls back to find the attention of the room fixed on him. He carries on as though he hadn’t noticed.

“Hello, nice to meet you again. I’m Jun,” he says, reintroducing himself to the other Twice members.

“I’m Chaeyoung”

“Jihyo,”

They both bow politely.

“Make yourselves comfortable,” Minghao gestures out to the common area. “We’re going to get to making food?” He says while looking at Tzuyu, his voice ticking up at the end in query.

Tzuyu nods knowingly, pulling off her backpack.

“Everything’s in here. Let’s get started.”

 

An hour later, the scent of traditional Christmas food fills the dorm; it’s a Taiwanese-Chinese fusion of sorts. Mainly Tzuyu and Minghao are cooking (he’d whispered to her earlier that Jun was not to be trusted with anything involving an oven or stove). They’re keeping Jun busy with requests for him to chop and wash things, but he’s primarily fulfilling the (questionably necessary) role of taste tester and backseat chef.

By this point Chaeyoung is playing video games with the boys, and Jihyo is conversing animatedly and singing with a dark-haired boy with a giant smile and a lanky boy with kind features (Dokyeom and Joshua, if Tzuyu’s not mistaken), the latter of whom who has his guitar out. She’s happy to see her group members get along so well with the Seventeen members, even ones she herself has barely met yet.

 

At dinner Jun notices Dokyeom sitting with Jihyo, engrossed in lively conversation instead of clowning around with the group as per usual. Chaeyoung is sitting between Wonwoo and Mingyu and looks hilariously tiny between the two. She’s rolling her eyes at their many puns, and she winds up getting conned into having a rap battle with them later. Tzuyu brought her group members for moral support but is glad to see them interacting with everyone rather than clinging to her side.

“So, how did you all meet?” a boy with long silvery hair—Jeonghan, if Tzuyu’s memory serves her correctly—asks from across the table. Joshua and Seungcheol are sitting on either side of him, and their attention focuses on Tzuyu, Jun and Minghao as well.

Tzuyu freezes. Not that they’ve done anything _wrong,_ per se, but it feels like Jeonghan is fishing for something provocative.

“Well, it was our last week of promoting Mansae and I heard her speaking Mandarin in the hallway backstage at… MCountdown, I think? I knew how grateful I was to have friends I could speak to in Korea when I came so I introduced myself, and then later Minghao as well. The rest is history,” Jun explains.

“Do you all meet up?” Joshua asks. Minghao, Jun and Tzuyu nod in unison. 

“I never knew about that,” Seungcheol remarks in awe.

“You never asked,” Jun replies with a shrug.

“Yah, is that any way to talk to your leader hyung?” Jeonghan admonishes, swatting at Jun.

“I didn’t know you all met up, either,” Jihyo remarks, leaning in to the conversation. Tzuyu hadn’t realized she’d been listening in too.

“Maybe us leaders had ought to have a conversation about these _secret meetings,_ ” Seungcheol says to Jihyo, who is sitting beside him.

“ _Aniya,_ it’s not like that,” Minghao pipes up. Jun gets the sense that Minghao is covering for him in saying so, especially considering that they’d only met up all three of them for lunch once. That, and the fact that what he’s saying now is in direct opposition to the remarks he’d made towards Jun in the last few weeks. “We can have friends who are girls, can’t we?”

“So long as we’re discreet about it, yeah,” Seungcheol concedes. “You _are_ discreet about it, right? I don’t want any scandals coming from any of you.”

“We were practicing by keeping it a secret from you,” Tzuyu remarks offhandedly, and Joshua chokes on his drink for laughing. Seungcheol hesitates a moment in surprise at her cheeky comment, then laughs too.

“Aish, Tzuyu, don’t be rude,” Jihyo chides her.

“It’s ok, I didn’t take it that way,” Seungcheol says, turning to Jihyo, “I was just a bit shocked since I’m just used to girls being more… how do I say this?... reserved?”

“Hmm, I wouldn’t say Tzuyu is _reserved,_ ” Jihyo mutters, taking a sip of her water.

“Hey now, what is this _used to_ that you were saying?” Jeonghan says, prodding Seungcheol with his elbow. “Are you meeting up with girls too, Seungcheol-ah?”

They all continue to banter at the table over their abandoned empty plates. It’s refreshing to Tzuyu to talk and feel like she can be herself, since the boys seem welcoming, and it’s comforting to have Jun and Minghao by her side to help her when she can’t find a word in Korean or gets lost trying to follow the conversation. She finds herself laughing at all of their bickering and even manages to squeeze a few embarrassing stories about Jun and Minghao out of them.

After dinner, the boys insist that the girls rest as they are guests, and then they all quickly divide up cleaning tasks and get to them. Chaeyoung, Jihyo and Tzuyu take seats in the living room, away from the organized chaos. Chaeyoung sits on the couch and Jihyo and Tzuyu sit on the floor below her, all three of them huddling together to talk privately.

“Getting along well with everyone, I see?” Tzuyu teases them in a low voice. 

“What are you saying?” Chaeyoung pushes Tzuyu with her foot. “Besides, if anyone is getting along too well, it’s you,” she deflects the topic.

“Yeah, what is this about secretly meeting up with boys?” Jihyo asks.

“Say what now?” Chaeyoung chimes in in disbelief. She must not have heard about it from down the table.

“Now you two are ganging up on me,” Tzuyu pouts, slumping back against the couch.

“You started it!” Jihyo says defensively, poking at her stomach. Tzuyu swats Jihyo’s hand away, ignoring her comment.

“Besides, it’s not a big deal. We just got meals a couple of times,” Tzuyu explains. She’s not _lying_ per se, but not exactly disclosing that it was mostly just her and Jun who got together. It’s not a big deal and it doesn’t mean anything, but she knows that Chaeyoung and Jihyo would have an absolute fit if she were to disclose _that._

“Whatever you say,” Chaeyoung singsongs flippantly, clearly unconvinced. 

“Time for a game?” Mingyu says, practically flinging himself down on the couch opposite from Chaeyoung. That boy is tall as a tree and all limbs, taking up nearly half of the available space.

“Or maybe it’s time for our _rap battle?_ ” Wonwoo says, sitting between them. He’s tall too but a fair bit lankier than Mingyu (and apparently he’s less prone to gestures of grandiosity, it would seem). Chaeyoung rolls her eyes at the pair of them. Needless to say, they’ve become fast friends.

“Only if you promise not to make any puns,” Chaeyoung cautions.

“But Chaeyoung, that may be… _im-puns-ible,_ ” Mingyu says, and breaks into a toothy self-satisfied grin when everyone groans. Chaeyoung covers her face with her hands in duress.

“Oh my god, you _didn’t_ just… Ugh. Mingyu, you’ve been vetoed,” Chaeyoung says in an aggrieved voice. Wonwoo wears a tiny pleased smirk and does a silent happy dance with his hands, which are covered by his long sleeves.

“Fine then. But I’ll officiate,” Mingyu immediately volunteers himself.

“Doesn’t sound too objective,” Jihyo tutts.

“You’re right.” Tzuyu says, nodding. “Seunghceol-oppa!” Tzuyu calls out and waves, catching his attention. Jun looks too, and his expression sours for a moment, hearing her call him that, until he reminds himself to stop being so dramatic. Seungcheol is, by definition, her oppa. 

“We need you to officiate our rap battle,” Tzuyu grins. “You’re on the rap team, right?”

“Tzuyu’s gonna rap?” Minghao says in disbelief, taking a seat on the floor between Wonwoo and Mingyu’s legs.

“ _Ani,_ Chaeyoung is,” Tzuyu says, waving off his ludicrous suggestion. She could hardly rap in Mandarin, much less Korean.

“Let’s simmer down, guys. I think maybe we need to know one another better before we do a diss battle,” Chaeyoung says.

“Is our Chaeng scared?” Jihyo says, tickling Chaeyoung, who wiggles away from Jihyo and toward the boys.

“ _Ani,_ I’m just worried what will happen to our group relations once I obliterate Wonwoo,” Chaeyoung deadpans.

“Careful Chaeyoung, those are fighting words,” Seungcheol cautions, pulling up a chair beside the couch.

“ _Ani, Ani,_ my ego is fine,” Wonwoo says, still comfortably slumped back on the couch. “I wouldn’t want to force the lady to get in a fight she knows she’ll lose.” He playfully side-eyes Chaeyoung, who side-eyes him right back.

“Before you guys bite each others heads off, let’s play a game!” Jihyo interjects, diverting the topic.

“Good idea. What do you all want to play?” Seungcheol asks, ever the gracious host. The girls hem and haw for a moment, exchanging uncertain looks.

“Let’s play mafia,” Dokyeom suggests, sitting down on the floor beside Seungcheol. The group makes noises of agreement.

“Anybody who wants to play mafia, finish up and get over here!” Seungcheol calls out towards the kitchen.

Jihyo gets her hands on some paper and makes up the slips for the game while Dokyeom reviews the rules for everyone. The rest of the boys trickle into the living room and make themselves comfortable over the next few minutes, and Jun wedges himself in the spot between Minghao and Seungcheol.

“Who’s going to officiate?” Jihyo says while cutting up the slips.

“Sounds like a job for MC Boo!” Vernon exclaims, prompting an uproarious positive response of cheers and claps from the boys. Seungkwan bows in exaggerated graciousness, fanning his eyes to stop his fake tears and acting as though he’s won an award at everyone’s unanimous vote for him to be the game’s officiant.

“ _Neh._ Oh, my microphone,” Seungkwan says, feigning that he’s flustered as he reaches around, grabbing the TV remote. 

“Ah ah ah,” he says into the remote as though it’s a mic, eliciting laughter from the group. “It’s time to start mafia. Remember to have your guard up, for in this game, your friends become your _enemies._ ”

Tzuyu can see now why they call him MC Boo.

 

“I’m not sure about the rest but I think either Woozi or Dokyeom is definitely mafia,” Jihyo says to the group.

“Me??” they both exclaim defensively; arguing and further accusations amongst the group ensues.

The game has been going on for nearly half an hour now. Minghao and Tzuyu were both eliminated and are huddled up next to one another, speculating over whom it might be. 

“Mingyu has been acting shifty,” Minghao whispers.

“So has Jihyo, though. And every person she’s voted to eliminate has turned out to be a citizen.”

“Yah, you two,” Jihyo gives Tzuyu’s arm a smack. “You may be speaking another language but I can still tell when you’re talking about me.”

“You know what they say about people who protest too much,” Tzuyu whispers to Minghao when Jihyo’s attention is diverted back to the group conversation.

But in the end, it turns out that she and Minghao know their group members all too well.

 

10pm comes sooner than Tzuyu expected. Everyone makes the rounds of goodbyes and she approaches Minghao and Jun last. Behind the two she sees Wonwoo take Chaeyoung’s phone and put his number in it. Tzuyu purses her lips in amusement at that, and she files the interaction away in case she needs to mention it later. 

“I think everyone got along,” she beams to Jun and Minghao.

“Definitely. You all should come over again,” Minghao says.

“Yeah, and bring more of your group members. I think the guys were disappointed in the girl to guy ratio,” Jun says in Mandarin. Tzuyu gasps and pushes at his shoulder.

“Cheeky!” she scolds him, and he presses his lips together to hold back his smirk as Minghao blatantly laughs at the pair of them. “Yah! Minghao! A little help here!”

“I can’t help you here, Tzuyu,” he replies cryptically, and he and Jun clap hands and bump shoulders conspiratorially.

“Oh my god, the both of you are terrible,” she complains. They both just laugh at her offense. “Really! I mean it!” 

“What was that you said earlier about people who protest too much?” Minghao asks, mimicking what she’d said about Jihyo. Tzuyu just rolls her eyes, not dignifying him with an answer.

“I’ll see you at the Gayo Daejeon, then,” she says dismissively and tries to brush past them, but they both trap her in a hug. 

“Let me goooo,” she whines, wiggling and trying to shake them off.

“You know, your life would be a whole lot easier if you could just accept our love, okay?” Jun says. Tzuyu is taken aback at this and she feels her ears grow hot, but they must take her pause as acceptance since they let her go.

“Tzuyu, you ready?” Chaeyoung calls across the room. She and Jihyo are by the door and in the midst of putting their shoes on.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Tzuyu says to her. She turns back to Jun and Minghao. “Don’t think I’ll forget about this,” she says threateningly, raising a warning finger at them and narrowing her eyes as she backs away. They both just snicker.

 

The boys disperse once the girls leave, settling themselves back into their bedrooms or scattering across the living room.

“So, looks like you were talking to Jihyo a lot,” Hoshi says, clapping a hand over Dokyeom’s shoulder.

“ _Ani, ani,_ ” Dokyeom says hastily, but his expression betrays his words, his signature sunshine smile plastered across his face.

“They were pretty cool,” Mingyu remarks from the kitchen, picking at the leftovers. Typical Mingyu, still eating.

“Definitely sassy though,” Jeonghan notes from his spot on the couch.

“Is that a bad thing?” Jun asks.

“Nah, it’s good. It means they can keep up,” Seungcheol replies. “Speaking of, what were you two saying to Tzuyu that she got so worked up?” 

Minghao and Jun exchange looks and struggle not to smile.

“Nothing much,” Jun replies evasively. Seungcheol gives him a questioning look but doesn’t press the issue further. He’s probably better off not knowing. 

 

The day of the Gayo Daejun Tzuyu feels jittery. It’s her first big award show performance, and something about it seems so monumental. She’d performed on many stages before but nothing to this scale, nothing in such a big venue and certainly never at an event that the whole nation would be watching like this. She feels like she did the day of their debut, the day she first performed on Sixteen, and the day of her first ever dance recital back when she was a little kid. She wonders if she’ll ever stop feeling nervous like this, if she’ll always retain that humility behind it or if there’s an upper limit to it. She’s not sure which thought is more daunting.

While the rest of her members performed on the red carpet earlier in the day, Tzuyu had been occupied with a solo interview. She’d felt a weird discomfort when she’d received her individual schedule and her members had practiced their routine without her, but she’d swallowed it down and fulfilled her individual activities nonetheless. It’s divisive and makes more work for them all, but she reminds herself that she should always be grateful for the opportunity to do activities alone; she’s both establishing herself and promoting her group more.

Backstage she changes into her costume and has her makeup and hair touched up alone. She makes an attempt at conversation with the few staff members who are with her, all of whom are friendly enough and manage to keep Tzuyu’s nerves from fraying further with their chatter. 

After she’s all changed and coiffed and is waiting in her dressing room for her group members to arrive, she hears an array of familiar voices in the hallway and heads to the door to confirm her suspicion. Her heart leaps at the sight of Jun and Minghao along with the other Seventeen boys.

“Oppas!” she waves with a grin.

“Tzuyu!” they call in various intonations, crowding her. Somehow she always seems to forget just how _many_ members there are in this massive group.

“Have you eaten?”

“Good luck on your stage tonight!”

“Omo your costume is so shiny.” (That’s Seungkwan, of course.)

“One at a time guys, one at a time,” she says with a laugh at their eagerness.

“You’re here alone?” Seungcheol asks, peering over her shoulder into the empty dressing room.

“Yeah I had an individual schedule,” she says, catching her bottom lip between her teeth. She hopes she sounds confident but her voice wavers slightly; after 2 months of promoting and a few individual schedules she _should_ be used to it all by now.

“Wow, daebak! Congratulations,” Jun says, giving her thumbs up.

“Thanks. I think I did well.” She says, trying to convince herself of the same by saying it.

“I’m sure you did!” Seungcheol says, glancing down the hallway to see some of the other Seventeen members trailing along. “Well, we can’t stay but good luck! Say hi to Jihyo and Chaeyoung for us.”

She waves after them down the hall as they depart, and takes a seat back in her dressing room. It’s not long before the other Twice members join her to get ready, and they ask about her interview too. She hopes they’re not envious of her popularity but doesn’t know how to broach the subject without sounding arrogant, so for now she lets it lie. She’ll simply have to work harder to show them, not tell them, that she has their best interests at heart.

 

_Weibo—group chat_

_Minghao: dinner soon, anyone?_

_Jun: yesss_

_Minghao: not you ㅋㅋㅋ_

_Tzuyu: sorry I can’t T__T practice and filming for sugarman and cf stuff_

_Tzuyu: I’ll probably be eating everything in the car for the next few days ;_;_

_Jun: *_*_

_Minghao: yikes. Sorry Tzu_

_Jun: good luck on sugarman though~_

_Tzuyu: thanks! =^_^=_

 

New years eve hits. It’s Jun’s last performance of the year out of god knows how many. It feels like his group hit the ground running since their debut in May and they haven’t slowed down since. Even when they’re promoting they’re already preparing for what’s next. Nevertheless, the atmosphere is charged with an excited, buzzing energy. The turn of the New Year always seems like such a hopeful time.

"We've got to stop meeting like this," Tzuyu says wryly, approaching Jun in the hallway outside of his waiting room. He’s just returning from the bathroom; it’s serendipity that she’s passing by at this very moment.

"Oh then, should I...?" Jun opens the door and makes to ditch her in the hall. 

"Not what I meant!" Tzuyu replies to him after she bows and waves to the Seventeen members in the waiting room. "I do have to go though. You all should stop by our waiting room later!” She says, half to him and half to the whole room. She switches to Mandarin for her next sentence, turning her attention to Jun. "I remember you saying something about a better girl to guy ratio?" she says to tease him. 

"Noted," he replies, grinning wolfishly and resisting the bait.

"Oh my god, you are so sleazy," Tzuyu chastises him, rolling her eyes.

"Admit it, you love it," he sasses her.

"Whatever you say," she says flippantly as she backs away, before turning to continue down the hall. It still leaves him smiling like an idiot in her wake.

 

“Look what I found,” Chaeyoung announces as she enters Twice’s waiting room. Tzuyu looks up from her Korean language workbook to find the Seventeen members wavering at the entryway, not sure if they’re supposed to come in.

“Hello sunbae-nims,” the other girls chorus as they stand and bow, and Tzuyu waves over at everyone, flipping her workbook shut. The boys file into the room and she greets Seungcheol and Jeonghan first; Seungcheol looks a touch nervous but Jeonghan looks comfortable as always.

“It’s so many people all together!” she remarks to them. Fitting twenty-two people in one room is no joke.

“We get that a lot,” Jeonghan replies.

“Same. We definitely know the feeling,” Tzuyu says with a nod.

“You said we should stop by?” Seungcheol asks.

“Oh, yeah! I thought you all should meet everyone,” she replies. She takes a look over her shoulder and sees that the rest of her members behind her look shy and a little overwhelmed, aside from Jihyo and Chaeyoung. “Just a second, actually,” she says, excusing herself to encourage the girls to come over and interact with them more. Tzuyu notices Jihyo doing the same; she’s towing Jungyeon and Nayeon over by the wrists already.

With some encouragement everyone gets to talking. Momo, Mina and Sana end up speaking Japanese with Hoshi, who is adorably flustered and overwhelmed speaking to all three at once. Nayeon winds up sticking to the other ’95 liners, Seungcheol, Jeonghan and Joshua.

“Is this what you had in mind?” she says in Mandarin, approaching Jun and Minghao.

“Well yeah, actually,” Jun replies sheepishly. From there on she lets Jun’s comment go; she’s not one to hold grudges and was just trying to poke fun at him earlier.

“Happy new year, by the way! Any resolutions for 2016?” Tzuyu says to change the subject. 

“Uh, sleep more?” Minghao says; Tzuyu and Jun just laugh. If only they all could.

 

All too quickly the boys are being called away by their manager. Everyone bows and says their ' _goodbye_ 's and ' _nice-to-meet-you_ 's, wishing the girls a Happy New Year as they funnel out the door, the noise of their group fading as they make their way down the hallway. Tzuyu notices with amusement that Nayeon looks a little dazzled.

“Aw, Nayeon-unnie, got a crush?” Jihyo teases her, sitting on the couch across from her. Nayeon scrunches her face up in a frown and crosses her arms.

“You know we can’t date, Jihyo-yah,” Nayeon snipes back.

“I know, but we can still dream,” Jihyo props her chin up in her hand and looks off into the distance wistfully.

Somehow, Tzuyu isn’t surprised by who asks her for one of their numbers later.


	4. four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is based on trufax and real events.

“I think we can get it shut. Just sit on it. Have you tried sitting on it?”

“Are you sure we need this many shoes?”

“We can do it! We can do it!”

Jun, Wonwoo, and Joshua are struggling to close a suitcase. Seventeen is preparing to go on vacation for the variety show One Fine Day, their destination a mystery as of yet. All three of them are packed together in one suitcase for this trip, attempting to be conservative with space. As a large group they must always consider these things. Luggage can get out of hand quickly among 13 people.

“Don’t you think it’s suspicious that the CEO bought us a meal recently?” Dino asks, but it falls on inattentive ears as the rest of the guys are pumped for the trip; it’s early in the AM and they’ll be departing in the next few hours.

 

Though it’s cold and rainy, Jun and the group’s mood remains high as they travel. Their spirits are bolstered by the thought of a fun, relaxing vacation—their first real one in the seven months since their debut.

After a meal they arrive at a boat terminal and get their tickets, and then hurry to the dock once they realize that the ferry is departing soon.

Suddenly, to Jun’s confusion, the filming staff calls their attention and confiscates their phones and wallets and hands out small plastic bags. As everyone in Seventeen is in the midst of trying to make sense of what’s going on, one of the filming PD’s announces that they have one minute to make a survival kit out of their luggage, starting _now._

“What???” All of the boys complain, stupefied, but the clock is already ticking down.

“The bag is too small!” Dokyeom exclaims.

“Everyone, put on your big coats!” Seungcheol calls out to remind everyone in the midst of their hurry.

“What kind of _‘One Fine Day’_ is this?” Seungkwan whines, dumbfounded by the whole ordeal.

Everyone packs their bags in hurried panic, the dock a mess and strewn with their open suitcases.

And just like that, the minute is up and they are being swiftly herded onto the boat, forced to abandon the rest of their belongings on the dock. They turn back to see their regular staff of managers and stylists waving goodbye as the boat pulls away. The confusing whirlwind is left behind them but reality hasn’t registered yet.

Their phones and wallets are gone. They have no staff aside from the crew filming them. They each have only the possessions that fit into a gallon sized plastic bag. They’re headed to a tiny island for an entire week.

And then it hits him: they’re being castaway.

 

_Weibo group chat_

_Tzuyu, 6 January, 7:47pm: We’re performing in China tomorrow ( * _ *; )_

_Tzuyu, 7 January, 9:13am: How is your One Fine Day filming going, guys?_

_Tzuyu, 7 January, 6:22pm: must be fun :P_

_Tzuyu, 8 January, 10:06am: ……._

_Tzuyu, 8 January, 8:46pm: ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯_

 

Tzuyu is frustrated that none of her messages to Minghao or Jun are being answered. She knows they’re in Jeju filming for One Fine Day, but they can at least check their phones once in a while, can’t they? It’s been 3 days already since she last heard from them.

“Wow, we’re getting a lot of Chinese comments on our instagram right now,” Chaeyoung remarks, scrolling under their most recent picture.

“Let me see,” Tzuyu says, reaching out for Chae to hand her the phone.

At that moment the Music Core PD enters their waiting room.

“Girls, you’re on deck.”

“Later,” Chaeyoung says, locking her phone and dropping it on the couch. The girls take to the stage and after a few recordings manage to finish their filming for the day.

Tzuyu will know what the comments are saying before long.

 

Jun spends the week mostly just surviving with the other Seventeen members. It’s a good thing they’re close and have strong teamwork, because otherwise such a hardship would undoubtedly fracture some of their relationships. They owe much of that to Seungcheol for laying out expectations ahead of time and calling meetings to discuss the groups conflicts regularly.

They have to earn all of their food, at first through fishing and then later on in the week the crew grows merciful and allows them to win it through games. No rice for days on end had been shortening Jun’s fuse. They still have to light their own fires to cook anything, but thank god for Mingyu’s hidden chef skills because otherwise their menus would be pretty grim. Jun wishes he’d been able to bring a change of clothes, though; showering and then putting dirty clothes back on at the end still left him feeling grubby.

Earning their luggage back towards the end of the stay feels like a godsend. Still no wallet or phones, but clothes! Socks! The joy he never knew he could feel from putting on a clean t-shirt!

Towards the end of the week their stay on the island begins to feel fun. They establish a rhythm to their days and now that they have clothes and food, they can focus more on enjoying their free time, playing games with one another and exploring the island. At the end it feels a little bittersweet, leaving the whole thing behind.

 

The crew tricks them until the bitter end, though. On the day of Seventeen’s departure, the boat to freedom in their sights, they get divided into teams for a game and the losing team has to spend another lonely day on the island. Jun’s team loses, and he starts to wonder if they’ll ever get to leave this godforsaken rock. That sentimentality from earlier in the day? Nowhere to be found.

The winning team—Seungcheol, Jeonghan, Joshua, Dokyeom, Woozi and Minghao—waves to them from the boat as they depart. They shout sorry but they don’t look it, not even a little bit.

 

The next morning Jun and the rest of the Seventeen members left castaway on Yeoseodo finally make it off of the island. They get their phones back, but they’re all predictably dead. The journey back to Seoul is long, and he feels antsy from being bored already. The sight of their dorm building is welcoming in a way unlike it ever has been.

“Jun, have you heard about Tzuyu?” is nearly the first thing he hears when he walks in the dorm.

“No, what’s up?” He says, dropping his bags.

“Come look,” Seungcheol beckons him; he’s seated on the floor next to Minghao with his laptop open and perched atop his legs.

“She’s not replying to my messages, either,” Minghao says as Jun strips off his coat. Jun makes his way over and bends down to look at the computer screen where Seungcheol has Naver pulled up.

“Look at this,” Seungcheol says, typing her name in the search bar and pressing enter. Jun scans the headlines on the results page.

_Tzuyu Under Fire in China for Taiwanese Independence Support_

_Zhou Tzuyu Censored from Chinese Government TV Station, CCTV_

_Chinese Netizens Outraged by JYP’s Response to Beijing TV’s Demands_

_Taiwanese Politicians Comment on the Zhou Tzuyu Controversey_

_Amidst Flag Controversey, LG Huawai Terminates contract with Zhou Tzuyu, Twice_

_Chinese Netizens Call for Ban on All JYP Artists, Flag Controversy to Blame_

_Tzuyu Flag Scandal: Singaporean Politicians Weigh In_

The further Jun reads the tighter his chest clenches. This is not good.

 

Tzuyu’s locked down in her dorm, all schedules for the group cancelled. An invisible tense fog settles around her members, and Tzuyu doesn’t even want to go out in the common area to face them. What just a few days ago felt like an endless upward trajectory for their group has been ground to a screeching halt. JYPE is protecting her, she knows, but she also knows that the public contempt towards her in China is only growing by the day. She hopes with futility that this will die down soon enough.

Tzuyu gets summoned to the JYP building the next morning, January 12th, and informed that they’re flying her mom to Korea and will have a meeting about _‘where to proceed going forward’_ when she gets there. She should be happy to see her mom but this can only mean something bad, something worse than what she’d already endured, in fact.

She can’t avoid the messages in the news, even on the short walk back to her dorm while obscured in a mask, sunglasses, hat and padding. Thank god it’s winter and she blends in.

It’s everywhere, on the magazines, scrolling across the news billboards, people talking about it in the street. She feels her throat closing up in emotion, tears burning threateningly in the corners of her eyes from the sheer magnitude of it all.

Silently (because could she cry any other way?) the tears slip out, leaving itchy salt tracks where they dry. Her manager is stone-faced, unlike the usual jovial conversation she tries to have with Tzuyu in spite of the language barrier. There are no schedules to discuss, and there isn’t much to laugh about, so they walk at a brisk clip back to her dorm in near silence.

When they get back to the dorm, Tzuyu shuts herself away in her room, weakly brushing off her group members’ concerned greetings. She shuts her bedroom door and slides down it to sit on the floor, burying her face in her hands. How could she have ruined things for so many people? She feels like she is going to implode with guilt and frustration at herself. She is angry with herself for dismissing her unnies on the way in because their futures rest on her actions, but she knows that she’ll just end up sobbing if she tries to talk to them. She couldn’t dare ask for their support right now, not when she is at the crux of their misfortune.

The computer is on Chae’s bed, and she must be a glutton for punishment because she crawls over to it on her hands and knees. She wants to see what the company has been shielding her from in full. She wants to see they’re saying about her on Weibo.

She ignores her blinking messages and searches through the hashtags. She doesn’t have to look far; both #boycottTzuyu and #boycottJYPE are trending.

[+4,357, -12] If you don’t love China stop coming here to earn money.  
[+3,281, -31] Traitor. We will fight all pro-independence supporters to the end.  
[+6,212, -23] JYP is dirty. Their artists should stop taking Chinese money if it’s going to be like this  
[+7,238, -36] Get out of China. Being 16 is no excuse.  
[5,245, -18] She should really make a public apology for this.  
[+2,891, -16] Too bad, JYP had some good artists. Can’t support them after this.

There are many more comments, some calling her a dog and a whore along with a whole host of other horrible defamatory names. But the comments that hurt the most are about her group and her company, and JYP for defending her. Her actions are having a ripple effect tantamount to a tsunami. She wants to scream out to the world _I didn’t mean it. I just grew up there and didn’t think there was anything wrong with holding up the flag. I didn’t mean to say anything about China._

But she is a public figure, and so it doesn’t matter what she really means; there are only the intentions that people ascribe to her.

 

Jun is beyond concerned about Tzuyu. His messages to her go unanswered, and unread for that matter. Every day, every few hours in fact, the situation seems to spiral into worse and worse territory. What at first had seemed like something that might blow over has become something that he can’t avoid no matter where he looks. It seems like every day another country’s government has something to say about it and there seems like nothing will ebb the flow of anger from the Chinese public. It’s evolving into a massive political controversy and the sassy, genuine, selfless 17-year-old girl he knows is stuck at the epicenter.

Minghao hasn’t heard back from her, either. When his group members ask him about her he only draws up a blank. He feels like his hands are cut off, with no way of communicating with her; he doesn’t even have her phone number, and her dorm building is constantly crowded with gawkers and press, not that he even knows which floor or room she’s in. He hadn’t realized how reliant they’d been on weibo until he couldn’t get through to her that way.

 

20160113  
_"Recently, there have been various malicious rumors circulating on the internet concerning one of our artists, Zhou Tzuyu. With regard to this, we are deeply regretful._  
JYPE is a multi-cultural company. We have always tried to encourage and further Sino-Korea cross-cultural interaction. Our company (including Tzuyu) has never engaged in political debate and has never taken a stance regarding Chinese territorial issues.  
_Furthermore, Tzuyu, the victim of these malicious rumours, is merely a 17-year-old girl. She has yet to form a solid political opinion regarding Chinese territorial issues, given her age and lack of experience._  
_Because of the above-mentioned malicious rumors, JYPE's everyday operations in China have been negatively affected. The longstanding cordial relationship that we have had with China has been greatly inconvenienced._  
_To remedy this situation, our company has decided to temporarily withdraw Tzuyu from all China-related promotional activities, until the truth regarding this matter is finally revealed."_  
-JYP Entertainment

 

JYP releases an apology that’s not an apology on the 13th and the response on Weibo is unlike anything Jun has ever seen before; unmitigated vitriol is funneled directly in Tzuyu, Twice, and JYP’s direction. Companies are dropping her for endorsements and blacklisting Twice and he’s coming up empty-handed with the only way he has to get in touch.

First it’s just her, and then stories of her threats against other JYP artists begin to surface. He reads online that one of her sunbaes, Nichkhun, landed in China for his regular schedules only to immediately turn tail and return to Korea. They’d been planning to mob him at the airport, so the story goes. Jun tries his best to focus in dance practice—Seventeen is performing at the Seoul Music Awards the next day—but every break he gets he compulsively checks his phone, willing a message to appear. Nothing.

 

Tzuyu finally checks her weibo messages, which are filled with concern from her friends and family in Taiwan, along with messages from her friends in the china line chat. She checks Minghao and Jun’s messages first.

_Weibo_

_Minghao, 3 days ago, 3:38pm: Tzuyu I’m sorry for the unkind things that people are saying. I am here for you if you want to talk. Fighting!_

_Minghao, 2 day ago, 2:16pm: Stay strong, Tzuyu. I support you. Please message me when you get a chance._

_Minghao, 1 day ago, 3:57pm: Hope you’re hanging in there. Tzuyu fighting!_

Short, sweet. She smiles the tiniest bit at his messages of support. In truth, it’s the first Chinese person she has seen that doesn’t want her head on a stake, or at least some form of reprimand.

_Weibo_

_Jun, 2 days ago, 5:16pm: I have seen some of the things people are saying and please know that I support you and don’t think you did anything wrong._

_Jun, 1 day ago, 9:47am: I hope that you are staying safe. Tzuyu fighting!_

_Jun, 1 day ago: 2:28pm: No need to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders alone, Tzuyu. I’m here~_

_Jun, today, 4:35pm: //cute cat gifs//_

_Jun, today 4:36pm: cheer up, little Zhou_

Tzuyu laughs at his last messages, messily wiping old tears off of her face with the back of her hand. It’s the first time she’s laughed in the last few days, definitely. She feels bolstered by their support but doesn’t have the mental energy to craft a response to them right now, so she snaps her computer shut and tries to get some sleep.

 

Her mom arrives in the hours following. Tzuyu hasn’t cried in front of anyone yet, but comes undone at the sight of her mom, who rushes to Tzuyu and just holds her. Tzuyu feels like a child again. Some might say she still is one.

They meet with the board of directors at JYPE, where they lay everything out: how this all started, and current public sentiment both domestically and abroad. They don’t blame her for anything, which is a relief, truly. They strongly lament the Taiwanese Independence Movement’s adoption of Tzuyu as a figurehead in the early days of this ordeal and suggest that this may not have blown up so strongly in the beginning if it were not for that. She’s being used to fight an ‘ideological proxy war’ so they say. Tzuyu struggles to fully grasp it all.

But then they lay out the facts: the blacklistings, censoring, threats to her sunbaes, the catastrophic effect on JYPs stocks, and the ramifications of a prominent South Korean entertainment company being embroiled in a political controversy. She knows they’re not blaming her, but can’t help wonder if they just buttered her up first, only to lay this out and then ask for something of her in return. She knows it’s coming.

Their proposed solution: she apologizes to the Chinese public. Her first response is indignation. What does she have to apologize for? She’s merely being used as a pawn between countries that are unable to sort their own shit out, and she finds it all disgusting and pathetic. But, she is rational and wants to have all of the facts before she decides, and so she listens. She grips her mom’s hand tighter all the same.

Park Jinyoung—JYP himself—gently reminds her that he has done everything in his power to personally try to defend her, both to the company that censored her and to the Chinese public, and that it has only made the situation worse. This is the most viable solution to get everything to simmer down. It’s the only thing the Chinese government will accept at this point, because of how far everything has gone. That has been made clear to him on no uncertain terms.

“What’s the catch?” Tzuyu asks after their lengthy address. JYP looks surprised, and the board of directors murmurs at her prickly response, unaccustomed to receiving cheek from lowly artists. But it’s not like she has much to lose right now, anyway.

“Ah, I should’ve known you’d see that. You were always acute, Tzuyu,” Park Jinyoung muses to himself. “The stipulation is that you’d have to specify that you support the One China Principle. You would have to make explicitly clear that you believe Taiwan and China to be one.”

 

Tzuyu isn’t sure what she thinks. The meeting ended with JYP instructing her to contemplate it and discuss it with her mom, and give them her final answer tomorrow with her mother’s consent.

Her mom encourages her to make the apology, if only to stay safe. Tzuyu never knew her mom to kowtow to the demands of others so readily. After a lengthy discussion, Tzuyu asks to go home with her group members for the night. There’s a weighty significance to that because it’s the people whose lives she’s affecting. She wants to remember what it was like to be with them before she potentially destroys it all.

 

Her members greet her with kindness and concern, asking about what happened but backing off the subject when Tzuyu deflects it, making jokes and suggesting they have a dance party instead. She’s overwhelmed being with them, for the support and love she’s feels from them now and has for the past few months, and even the years before that beyond that. The emotions of gratitude and remorse well up unstoppably inside her, in the midst of their silly dancing to ‘Bang Bang Bang’. 

After days of hiding her tears, she can’t anymore. She sits on the living room couch, Jihyo unnie cradling her and Jungyeon unnie stroking her hair. This is the first time in all of these years of knowing her that they’ve ever seen her cry. She’s not a violent or dramatic crier, she just stoically lets the tears slip out, punctuated by loud sniffs. Everyone is concerned all the same—more so, in fact.

“If we can do anything for you, let us know,” Jihyo murmurs, her arms wrapped around Tzuyu’s shoulders, holding her close. Tzuyu just keeps crying, until she is brave enough to voice something she had been thinking about for the last few days.

“Can we ask manager-nim if my friend can come over?” Tzuyu says, burying her head into Jihyo’s shoulder.

“I’ll ask,” Nayeon stands up, and pads over to knock on their managers door.

 

This is how Jun ends up on Tzuyu’s doorstep at 2am, having come into the building through the back entrance. How he managed to get permission from his company or from Seungcheol, Tzuyu will never know. Scratch that, he probably didn’t.

She would normally care about her group members’ astonishment that a boy has arrived at their dorm, but instead she just pulls him by the arm across the living room, into her bedroom. She shuts the door behind them, despite what they may think. They’ve all met Jun before, so she knows it will blow over. Normally she respects Korean customs more but she is just _tired_ of the excessive level of propriety already. She can have a male friend in her bedroom and not mean anything by it, damn it.

She locks the door and presses her back against it, looking up to see Junhui’s mouth agape in shock at her actions.

“What?” she says, sounding more demanding than she had intended to.

“Uh, hi?” he replies softly.

Tzuyu dissolves into tears again, in spite of herself.

“Come here,” he says, pulling her in and enveloping her in a hug. Tzuyu lets herself cry until it feels like there are no tears left to come out. Jun guides her over to her bed to sit, and she buries her face into his shoulder, where tears have soaked his coat that he hasn’t even had the chance to take off yet.

“Sorry,” she says miserably into his chest, her words muffled. He laughs. Laughs! She could hit him right now for that.

“Any time,” Jun says, giving her a squeeze before letting her go. She must look like an absolute wreck, all red and puffy in the face. She hates crying in front of others more than anything, not just for how she looks physically but for the weakness it displays. It feels like giving a piece of herself away every time.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks, an arm still draped around her. 

“Not really,” she replies in a flat voice. She’s still clinging to him, but adjusts herself so that she’s laying in his lap, not able to face him. “Tell me what’s going on with you. I need a distraction.”

“Well,” Jun begins, and she feels rather than sees him hesitate about where to place his arm, eventually deciding to put his hand on her shoulder. “We just won an award today, at the Seoul Music Awards. Our first award.” He says it in a dreamy voice. “It feels like everything is finally paying off. And we went to dinner after. Seungkwan and Hoshi cried a few times, which is always funny, Hoshi because his eyes disappear into his face. He always says that he’s doing stuff like that for the cameras but in reality he’s just a big baby.”

Tzuyu drums her fingers against Jun’s thigh, smiling softly at his good news. Before she can begin to dwell on her own group’s future he continues.

“The reason I never messaged you back is because we got tricked for One Fine Day. They took away our phones and made us castaways.”

He recounts the story of their being duped by the staff many times over, and Tzuyu laughs mercilessly at their misfortune. She knows Jun wouldn’t be telling this to her now if it were not for a reprieve.

“On one of the last days when Minghao went to the big island, the other guys he was with convinced him that he could pay with abalones. They even got a shop owner in on it so he’d see them do it and believe them. He was so embarrassed after he tried to pay with them at the next shop and everyone left him behind.”

There is a lull in his speech, and Tzuyu figures it’s as good of a time to start as any.

“So I’m sure you know why you’re here,” she says.

“Partially, yeah. I’ve seen the news but you’ve been radio silent until now. What’s up?” He rubs her shoulder encouragingly.

“Well, I have 2 options. I can take a stand and leave the group, or I can apologize and betray my people but do it for my groups future,” she says matter-of-factly. Jun grips her shoulder at that.

“They’re forcing you to apologize?” Jun says in shock and incredulity. There’s a tinge of disgust in there, too.

“No, but I know I would ruin things for everyone in my company if I stayed and stayed silent. It would be tantamount to JYP giving China the middle finger. Well, more than it has already.” She sighs. “They laid it all out for me, what's happening with my sunbaes being threatened, all of the CFs that have been cancelled, how I'm being censored on TV, and all of the different countries’ governments that are commenting on it. We all kept thinking that it would blow over but it's spiraling out of control. The way I see it there's only 2 options.”

“Are you asking me for advice?” Jun asks.

“I… I guess so,” she wavers. His adrenaline spikes, setting him on edge at the prospect that she’s consulting him to influence such a weighty decision. There’s so much at stake here, and the fact that she trusts him to give her advice makes him feel a complicated mix of happiness and uncertainty.

“Well, I think the ultimate question is what you want for after,” Jun finally settles on.

“I don't think I could go home. I sacrificed so much to come here: my education, living with my family and friends, a normal childhood. What could I be if not this?” She picks at a loose thread on the seam of his pants. If it were anyone else, anywhere else, he’d give her grief about it, but he lets her have this tiny comfort.

“Well you _could_ still do something else,” Jun says optimistically, ruffling her hair. “You still have time.”

Tzuyu sighs heavily. Sighing and crying seem to be her begrudging M.O. these days.

“This is my dream. Not just mine, but my unnies too. It wasn't necessarily before, but being onstage is like nothing else. It's worth all of the late nights and rehearsals, and not eating and exercising to no end. The not being understood and being away from my family.” 

It pains him to say it, but for the sake of her best interests and being a fair sounding board, he does.

“You could in Taiwan?”

“And throw the last 3 years of work away? I can't let them take that from me,” Tzuyu says with a quiet determination, voicing a conviction she didn’t even know she had up until this moment. While she’d initially wanted to resist her mom’s advice, the more she spoke to Jun the more she seemed to be convincing herself otherwise. “And my group mates, throwing all of their work away…” she adds on softly, trailing off.

“Could you apologize, sincerely?” He finally asks, having exhausted all of the alternatives he could think of.

“Does it matter?” Tzuyu asks.

“It should...” Jun says quietly, stiffening, and his hand that had been rubbing her arm stills. Tzuyu must notice his shift in demeanor, since she sits up and looks him in the eye.

The conflict she sees there makes her realize, in full, just how awkward of a position she’s putting him in. He’s Chinese, born and raised, and here she is being disparaging of his people and flippant towards the integrity of their principles, something that undoubtedly still holds high value to him.

“I'm sorry, here I am venting and being totally insensitive that it's about the place you come from,” she apologizes, casting her eyes downward in embarrassment for her lack of consideration.

Jun snorts at this. 

“As if I'm in any position to get offended by what you're saying right now. I'm loyal to China and I love my home but Tzuyu, compare our plights. Offend away; I can take it. What are friends for if not to share your burdens?”

She knows that national pride is massive; something instilled in Chinese citizens from birth and reinforced everywhere: in school and at home, as well as in public arenas. She realizes how much of a big sacrifice it is and how much Jun must care about her to put those feelings aside and listen to her like this.

“But also Tzuyu, if you're going to take a political stance, you should believe it,” he tacks on gently.

She huffs and runs her fingers through her hair anxiously.

“That’s the problem. I don't _have_ a political stance. I left Taiwan when I was 13 and I didn't have a stance then. It's not like I know anything more now that I've been gone.” She squishes her own cheeks together in annoyance, then drops her hands in her lap in defeat. “I've spent the last 3 years overcoming obstacle after obstacle and just trying to survive. It would just be spouting off others opinions at this point. Although I'll tell you, the Chinese aren't doing much to win favors in my eyes at the moment.”

“I dunno Tzuyu, I think you’ve got a fine Chinese specimen sitting right in front of you,” Jun deadpans. Tzuyu cracks up with a full, voluminous laugh in her surprise, falling backwards on the bed in her mirth. After a few moments Jun pulls her back up by the hand and lingers half a second before dropping it, but she doesn’t seem to notice. Only when she settles down does she speak.

“Gosh, I haven’t laughed like that in… too long.”

“Glad to be of service,” he smiles softly. She purses her lips in amusement and looks up at him shyly.

“I know it matters.” Tzuyu says, returning to the topic at hand. “I know. And I know how much rests on this. I just wish people would stop saying some of the things that they do and assuming they know my intentions…”

“I’m sure it’s frustrating,” he says, leveling with her. “People are angry at you, for what? Holding a flag? Saying that you’re Taiwanese, like it’s some crime?”

She sighs. She makes a mental note to stop sighing after today.

“It’s more than that, though. This is about so much more than me.” She plops her chin into her palm, slumping over with her elbow propped up on her knee. “It makes me wonder though… Am I a bad person? Not just for this whole controversy and what people are saying; I don't want to internalize that. But at the same time I feel like I'm being selfish. Ultimately I’m considering what I want out of this situation instead of everyone else I’m affecting.”

Jun gives her a critical look.

“First off, something isn’t true by virtue of the fact that a lot of people believe it, Tzuyu. You know that. Second off, think of all you _just_ said. How much you just talked about the way you're affecting others. That is the very definition of selfless.”

Jun can practically see the thoughts and emotions pass across her face: sadness, acceptance, contemplation, and then steeling her resolve.

“I think I know what I need to do,” She declares with a sharp nod, her words weighty with finality. Her eyes are fixed across the room but he knows she’s looking past the physical object, lost in that head of hers, as she is wont to do. The last few years must’ve done a number on her level of introspection for how pensive she can get.

“Good. You know what’s best for you. I don’t doubt that you knew it all along,” he encourages her with a pat to the shoulder. She turns to him with an earnest look; there’s a nervous pang in his stomach when she fixes him with that vulnerable gaze.

“Thank you, Jun. Seriously. It feels like you’re the only person I can talk to who doesn’t want something from me right now,” she says intently. She squeezes his hand and smiles softly.

His heart flutters at this, and he thinks that what she just said may not be entirely true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter involved hella research PLEASE LOVE IT OK. A lot of thought went into the timeline and about 90% of this is true to the actual events and only varies on the parts that I couldn’t pin down. The JYP statement that I quoted is a real translation of their actual statement (http://onehallyu.com/topic/270872-jype-releases-statement/). Most of the “comments” are real as well (http://www.taipeimain.com/the-tzuyu-event-is-now-the-china-problem/).


	5. five

_Weibo_

_Tzuyu, 12:35am: Let’s get ice cream_

_Jun, 12:36am: Tzuyu wanting dessert? I never thought I’d see the day!_

_Tzuyu, 12:36am: I deserve it after everything lately_

_Jun, 12:37am: you right, you right_

February emerges without much fanfare, mercifully. In the weeks since Tzuyu apologized, everything has been looking up. The Chinese government started removing hateful posts against her from Weibo, and public opinion in Korea seems to have taken a large uptick for her; the outpouring of sympathy and support has been nothing short of overwhelming. It makes it harder for her to go places in public than before, but if the only consequence of the ordeal is greater public recognition then she’ll take it and not complain.

She and Jun meet up under the cover of night. Tzuyu thinks back and remembers the care with which she dressed the first time they met up. As if anyone would really have been following her back then, especially compared to now. The idea is laughable in hindsight.

They meet up at a convenience store halfway between their dorms. They pick their ice cream—he plucks hers from her hands when they’re waiting in line and pays for both—and they head outside to walk around while eating.

“Your speech at the Golden Disk Awards was brilliant,” he says as he peels the wrapper off of her ice cream, handing it to her. “It was just enough to be low-key sassy.”

“Thanks. It felt so good to be supported like that. The response was just… unreal,” she replies, still in awe from the memory. The thunderous applause she’d received that night and at every performance since then made her heart glow with happiness. It made the derision she’d received from doing the apology feel more bearable. It made it feel like she’d made the right decision, after all.

“So you’re pretty popular now, I’ve noticed,” he says, referring to how much positive press and new CF offers she’s gotten in such a short time. There had been something amazingly reassuring about the first company that had contacted JYP for endorsement. Since then offers had come pouring in but she’d never forget that first call. She’d also never forget the fair weather businesses that had dropped her so easily. Businesses are ultimately for money in the end so there’s no hate that she’s holding onto, but the impression is still lasting.

“I don’t know about all that,” she says modestly, appreciative of the comment nonetheless.

“Be confident, Tzuyu. You deserve it,” he says, chomping down on his ice cream bar. She doesn’t know about all that, but appreciates the encouragement.

“So you have a concert coming up?” Tzuyu asks to change the topic. She can only talk about her own achievements for so long.

“Yup, next week,” Jun says with a skip in his step. If she didn’t know better, she’d never guess that he’s older than her for the childish quality that pervades his mannerisms.

“Encores from the ones in December, right?” She asks, tossing her wrapper in the trash.

“Look at you, knowing things,” Jun says approvingly. “You wouldn’t happen to be a Carat, would you?”

Tzuyu just gives him a look that’s somewhere between a glare and gaping. 

“Don’t be like that,” he scolds her, pouty. She knows he’s just exaggerating and doesn’t give him a reaction. “But anyway, I’ll be singing onstage. Alone. For the first time.”

“What are you singing?” she asks.

“Mom, by Ra.D,” he replies, hip lips pulling up to one side at the thought. He doesn’t have to say it for her to understand how sentimental that is. The volume of texts Jun’s mom sends him is rivaled only by the amount Tzuyu’s mom sends her. As hard as it is for them to be away, it must be a painful sacrifice to let a child leave to a foreign country only to chase a lofty dream with little guarantee of success. The amount of trust in that action seems more staggering every time she thinks about it.

“Let’s hear it,” she commands; he balks.

“Right now?”

“Yeah right now. What, are you shy?”

“No,” he replies sheepishly, his tone betraying his response.

He sings a few lines for her. It’s not perfect, but it reminds her of the soft, slightly flat way her mom used to sing her to sleep and it's so sweet.

 

They’re chatting about what they’ve done the last few days when Tzuyu feels a few water droplets hit her head and looks up to see only the open expanse of night sky above her. She frowns, ignoring it. She must be imagining things. 

Though it turns out that she wasn’t. The sky opens up and the downpour is swift and heavy, drenching her in what feels like a matter of seconds.

“We’re near my dorm, let’s go,” Jun says, and she runs a few blocks after him until they reach his building. He swipes his card at the scanner by the door and they dash into the entryway, pausing for a moment to catch their breath. They make eye contact and just start laughing at the absurdity of the whole thing. So much for running helping keep them dry even the slightest bit.

 

“Let’s get you some dry clothes,” he says, throwing his keys on the counter as they enter his dorm. The living room is dark and the whole dorm has a quiet, still quality to it.

Jun enters one of the bedrooms as she stands awkwardly dripping in the living room. He emerges with an armful of clothes.

“Here you go,” Jun says, handing her a pile containing a towel, a pair of pajama pants and a white t-shirt. He’s either naïve or a dirty pervert, she hasn’t decided on that one yet.

“Ummmm,” she says, looking down at the pile. 

“What?” He looks at her in confusion.

Naïve. It’s definitely naïve.

“Switch,” she holds out the white shirt, beckoning for him to trade with her. She sees the realization wash over him, followed immediately by mortification

“Oh,” he says quietly flustered, heat creeping up his face.

“It’s okay,” she says with a laugh, plucking the black shirt from his frozen hands and slinging the white shirt over his shoulder, giving it a reassuring pat.

She goes into the bathroom to change. Her jeans make a loud wet slap when she throws them on the floor, and the pajama pants are wonderfully soft and warm by comparison. She goes to remove her shirt and struggles with the zipper in the back. Of all days, why did she have to pick _today_ to wear a shirt with a zip she can’t get herself?

She struggles another minute before swallowing her pride.

“Jun?” she calls out softly from the doorway. He pokes his head around the corner, into her line of sight.

“Sup?”

“Can you, uh… help me with my zipper? I can’t get it.”

“Oh, yeah. Of course,” Jun replies, trying to sound unruffled but failing entirely.

As Jun approaches Tzuyu she turns around and pulls her hair to the side. He’s standing behind her but hesitates. She’s been this close to him plenty of times but something about this feels… weightier. Significant. He reaches up, gently pulling her zip down as she holds her breath.

He inches the zipper down, revealing the gentle slope of her back, an expanse of unblemished honey-colored skin over sinew. He’s so careful not to touch her, and tries to ignore the implication of the clasp beneath the zipper.

She turns to face him and the way he looks at her is electrifying and treacherous.

“Thanks,” she breathes out, voice barely audible. When did his heart start beating so quickly?

The air is thick with tension. This moment is dangerous and he needs to get out of here, but he’s glued to the spot.

There’s a cough from one of the rooms and the spell breaks, both of them jumping about three feet apart in surprise.

“I’ll let you…” Jun stammers, backing away.

“Yeah, I’ll just…” she steps back, pulling the door shut behind her.

 

He puts their wet clothes in the dryer and they settle onto the couch to wait out the storm.

“Movie?” he asks simply. If the smack of sheets of rain against the window is any indication, it’ll be a while before it lets up.

“Yeah, let’s do it.”

The atmosphere between them is less playful than usual. She keeps thinking about the way he looked at her earlier, the complicated, almost pained expression on his face. She wonders how she must’ve looked in turn. That, and if she was imagining the tension between them entirely.

They decide on a classic scary movie, Tzuyu’s favorite. Something about them makes her feel so alive, and it matches perfectly with the stormy weather. He puts the volume on low, with captions, so that they don’t wake everyone. They start the movie with a foot of distance between them but halfway through she’s clinging to his arm, attention fixed raptly on the screen, awkwardness between them a distant memory already. Scary movies might just become Jun’s favorite, too.

But it is late, and Tzuyu can feel her energy fading as the movie plays on. There’s still the soft patter of rain falling outside.

“I need to go home,” she mumbles, nestling against his shoulder. 

It’s the last thing she says before she succumbs to the heaviness pulling her down, down into the comforting blackness of sleep.

 

“Hyung, check this out,”

“Omo she’s wearing his clothes…?”

“Should we wake them up?”

“Shhhhh she’s moving,”

Distant voices intrude into Jun’s consciousness and he tries to tune them out, burying his face further into something that feels an awful lot like hair.

Then it hits him: it is hair. It’s Tzuyu’s hair.

He bolts upright in shock, halfway processing it in his sleepy brain. Tzuyu falls onto the couch behind him, eyes flying open as she lets out a sharp noise of surprise.

“What… where… what…?” She fumbles sleepily over her words as she sits up warily. Her eyes widen as she surveys the room.

Crowded is the wrong word, but they’re definitely surrounded by a multitude of boys.

“What time is it?” she rubs her eyes blearily.

“It’s 7,” someone replies. Good, so she hasn’t missed any schedules. Her unnies might not have even woken up yet, for that matter. The perks of being between promotions.

“What about your schedules?" Seungcheol demands. “We’ve got to get you out of here! Your group members are probably going crazy—”

“Relax, dad,” Tzuyu cuts him off. The group titters. “I just have dance practice at 10 today.”

“I’m just looking out for you,” Seungcheol responds defensively, a smile pulling at the corners of his lips all the same.

“Ummm but still. Explain.” Jeonghan adds.

“Explain what?” Tzuyu asks.

“This.” Jeonghan gestures between the pair, the rest of the group fixing them with their for-once undivided attention. Tzuyu’s lips curl up at the corners at their seeming inability to process the situation.

“We fell asleep,” Tzuyu responds simply.

“Yeah, we can see that,” Jeonghan responds, withheld impatience peeking through his words.

“We got caught in the rain nearby last night and came here to wait out the storm,” Jun explains. Some of the guys look unconvinced, Woozi, Jeonghan and Minghao especially. Wonwoo is smirking conspiratorially in the back.

“Really! Do you think we’d fall asleep sitting up on _purpose?_ ” Jun protests.

“Riiiight,” Seungcheol says dismissively, still a bit mistrustful. “Tzuyu, you should probably let Jihyo know where you are.”

The woes of a leader. He gets it.

 

Mingyu takes it upon himself to make them breakfast. Tzuyu changes into her now-dry clothes from yesterday while he does.

“Jun,” she hisses, poking her head out of the bathroom door and waving him over from his spot on the couch with Wonwoo and Hoshi.

When he arrives she turns and pulls her hair to the side so he can zip her up, but this time it’s a 180 from last night; he hurriedly pulls it up and steps back before she can turn around.

“Thanks,” she murmurs, rubbing her shoulder nervously.

He’s probably overthinking things, but it feels like they took one step forward, then two steps back.

 

Jihyo’s sitting at the kitchen table sipping coffee when Tzuyu walks in the dorm.

“Take a seat,” Jihyo says, not unkindly, but it’s also not an offer Tzuyu feels she can refuse. “What happened last night?”

“Are you asking me that as my leader, or as my friend?” Tzuyu asks as she sits.

“Both,” Jihyo replies with a shrug.

“Well, Jun and I were walking near his dorm and it started raining, so we went inside to wait it out. It kept raining and I fell asleep there by accident,” Tzuyu explains. She feels like she’s had to tell this story an awful lot for how early it is in the day.

“And…” Jihyo trails off.

“And what?” Tzuyu says, an edge to her words.

“ _And…?_ ” Jihyo leans in. Tzuyu scoffs.

“It’s not like that, Jihyo-unnie,” Tzuyu says. Jihyo fixes her with a long, critical gaze.

“I’m not sure if you’re lying to me or to yourself,” Jihyo remarks lightly, tilting her head in question.

“I’m not lying!” Tzuyu bolts out of her chair, causing Jihyo’s eyebrows to shoot up and her eyes to widen in surprise. “Besides, you’re one to talk,” Tzuyu huffs.

Jihyo has never seen Tzuyu so easily ruffled. It can only mean one thing: she was right.

 

_Weibo_

_Jun, 8:10pm: sorry for everyone being weird the other day_

_Tzuyu 8:10pm: it’s no problem_

_Tzuyu 8:10pm: I’m just glad that nobody got in trouble_

_Jun 8:11pm: same_

_Jun, 8:11pm: well, other than the everlasting taunting I’m on the receiving end of for being the first to have a girl sleep over_

_Tzuyu, 8:11pm: ㅋㅋㅋ_

_Tzuyu, 8:12pm: you sure they aren’t lying? Wonwoo looks pretty shifty…_

_Jun, 8:12pm: ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ_

 

It’s a cold wintery February day when Jun, Hoshi, Dokyeom and Seungkwan make their way to the Super Junior dorm. Light flurries of snow whip around in the air and cover everyone in a slight frost, and Jun hunches forward into his coat, wishing he’d had more foresight and worn a scarf.

Dokyeom and Seungkwan are hosting SuKiRa with Ryeowook later in the day, and some of the Seventeen members are paying a visit to their Suju-hyungs before the show. Many of the Super Junior members had expressed that they felt a certain connection to Seventeen, as they were the first prominent 13-member group to have come around since suju, so from time to time the boys meet up with them for coffee or at their dorm. Today is one such day. Jun has to remind himself more than once of why he agreed to go when he could’ve been bundled under the covers at this moment. He’s got questions that need answers.

“Hello, hyung,” they all greet Ryeowook at the door, and he hurries them inside and out of the cold before they exchange hugs and handshakes.

They all sit and talk in the common area for a while, and Leetuk and Kyuhyun join them. Jun feels like he can’t fully relax, and waits for a moment where he can get Ryeowook alone; he’s the hyung Jun feels closest to.

Ryeowook is pouring himself a cup of tea when Jun enters the kitchen after him. Jun doesn’t have any grand plan so he just starts talking.

“Hyung, can I ask your advice on something? There’s something that’s been on my mind lately… I’ve just been wondering, not that there’s anything to worry about,” Jun starts haltingly.

Jun pauses, making eye contact. Ryeowook’s silence as he stirs his tea is unnerving. He only raises his eyebrows to encourage Jun to continue.

“Is it ok to date someone? Like, how does one justify it, I guess? Not feeling guilty for hiding something from their fans and company and even their members?” Jun wavers, peeling at the wrapper on his water bottle before meeting Ryeowook’s eyes. “It just seems wrong to be so disloyal to them in one sense, and yet… should work go so far in limiting one’s private life?”

“Ah, so you’ve just been wondering, is that it?” Ryeowook looks at him with a knowing gleam in his eye. He’s always had this disconcerting way of seeing right through Jun. In truth, Jun expected as much but couldn’t very well have come right out and explained his whole situation, not that he’s really sure of what he wants to do or what he really feels, for that matter. Besides, if Ryeowook told Seungcheol—and he still might—Jun would be toast.

But the thing is, Jun has just been wondering. The philosophical angst over the concept makes him feel like a dramatic cliché teenager, but it’s there. In a tangential way it’s related to his reality—which is as far as he’ll allow himself to entertain the idea—but usually the morally correct thing in any situation is crystal clear to him. On this topic, however, the lines are fuzzy at best.

“I'll tell you a secret in case you haven't figured it out already: everybody does it. Of course it's ok,” Ryeowook says. Jun breathes a little easier, tension he didn’t realize he was holding on to melting the tiniest bit. “The fans and the company think that they own you, but you still have to keep pieces of your life for yourself. It’s one thing to love your fans, perform for them, communicate with them and work hard at practicing what you have to show them, and it’s another thing to give your whole life away.”

Ryeowook sighs, eyes unfocused as if he loses himself in thought for a moment.

“And I’ll put this inelegantly now: fans will give you shit about dating because they feel like you owe them your loyalty in exchange for theirs. It’s misguided and they think it comes from a place of caring, but you don’t owe them everything. If they really, actually cared about you then they’d want you to be happy instead of wanting to control your existence.”

Jun almost can’t believe what he’s hearing, and the bluntness with which Ryeowook says it. It seems so callous to talk about fans and the company that way, the two things that have allowed him to achieve the success that he has today. Ryeowook’s been in the industry for so long though; he must be hardened by time. More than anything though, he seems tired. 

“As for your members, I’m sure you’re aware of what level of honesty is best as far as your personal relationships go. It’s important to pay mind to the fact that their success still rests partially on your behaviors. Use discretion, always. But, speaking from experience,” Ryeowook sets down his cup of tea, not especially forcefully, but it makes his point nonetheless; Super Junior has endured its share of controversies during its run, “one member’s scandal will not hamper the groups popularity once it has been attained.”

Jun just kind of gapes at Ryeowook. It almost feels like too much to process. He’s not used to this level of frankness when it comes to such a delicate topic. Admittedly, Jun appreciates the candor.

“But then, this is all hypothetically speaking, I take it?” Ryeowook quips with a twinkle in his eye, giving Jun an evaluative look up and down. 

At that moment, Hoshi enters the kitchen, pausing when he sees Ryeowook and Jun and senses the tension of their conversation.

“What’s going on?” Hoshi asks, looking between the two in uncertainty.

“Just giving sage advice,” Ryeowook says with a subtle wink at Jun. Before Hoshi can ask further Ryeowook picks up his mug and exits the room.

“What was that all about?” Hoshi turns to Jun.

“He just gave me a lot to think about,” Jun replies evasively.

“What about?”

Jun thinks on it for a moment—he doesn’t want to be dishonest, but telling the full truth would open up a conversation that he has no desire to have right now—before settling on an ambiguous answer.

“Life.”


	6. six

“Guys this room is a mess! I told you they’re coming over _today_.”

Jun hadn’t quite believed it when Seungcheol had informed the Seventeen members that the Twice girls were coming over. Not a few of them like last time, but the whole group. Apparently Nayeon had gotten closer to the other ’95 liners than everyone had realized.

“What has gotten into him?” Minghao mutters derisively in Mandarin as he sweeps the floor, casting Seungcheol a critical look when he has his back turned.

Minghao may look cute, but he definitely bites.

 

The girls parade in and their greetings vary from ostentatious to reticent. Mina and Momo waver by the door in their perpetual shyness while Mingyu steals Chaeyoung’s hat and holds it up high while she jumps to get it back in futility. He just pushes a finger against her forehead to hold her at arms length and plops it on his own head, grinning wickedly. 

“You are the worst,” Chaeyoung growls. She probably bites, too.

Tzuyu approaches Minghao first, casting Jun a few glances across the room as she speaks to him. Jun tries not to read too much into that, but he has the distinct impression that they linger longer than usual. It’s probably all in his head, he thinks, pushing the thought from his mind.

Jungyeon approaches Jun and Wonwoo, commenting on the fact that they’re all ’96 liners. Jun says that they should be friends if that’s the case, causing her to blush. His friendliness is too often misconstrued as forwardness by Koreans, this reminds him, and he tries to stay cordial towards her for the rest of the conversation.

 

“We have a surprise for you,” Jihyo says to Dokyeom and Hoshi as she bounces up and down on the balls of her feet.

“What do you mean?” Sana asks blankly beside her, fixing Jihyo with a confused look.

“The thing!” Jihyo exclaims. Sana just stares at her, perplexed. “ _The thing_ … the thing where we did… and you know, the other day…” Jihyo gestures ambiguously along with her words and Sana nods along slowly, still lost, until she pauses and then realization visibly washes over her. 

“Oh! The thing!” Sana nods fervently and her silvery curls bounce up and down in her enthusiasm. She and Jihyo jump together excitedly and laugh at her realization, leaving Dokyeom and Hoshi to stare at them, smiling politely but utterly bewildered.

After dinner everyone crowds around the TV to see _the thing_. Last week Twice filmed a dance relay for Mnet, a video in which they covered an assortment of boy group dances including Seventeen’s most recent song, and tagged Seventeen to do it next. Seventeen will have to cover Twice’s dance if they accept the tag, so some of the girls busy themselves with trying to teach them the choreography for _‘Like Ooh-Ahh’_. Predictably the guys goof off, which frustrates their main teacher, Sana.

“You have to take this _seriously,_ guys!” Sana whines, shuffling her feet in annoyance; Seungkwan and Hoshi are the only ones paying full attention to her. Wonwoo isn’t even standing, instead marking the moves from his seat on the couch.

The group eventually gets involved in playing a game but Tzuyu notices Minghao disappear from the chaos. After he’s gone for a few minutes she decides to check on him, excusing herself by halfheartedly muttering something about going to the bathroom, not that anyone pays her leaving much mind.

Tzuyu cracks the door into Minghao’s bedroom and it’s hazy and half lit, the only lighting the dregs of dusk coming in through a single window. Minghao’s perched up on a top bunk, and he pulls out his headphones when he notices Tzuyu close the door behind her.

“Whatcha doing?” Tzuyu asks, approaching the bunks.

“Needed a break from the mayhem out there, is all,” Minghao replies.

“Same,” she says, climbing up the ladder to join him on the top bunk.

Minghao plugs his phone into a mcguyvered speaker system he’s got set up and puts on some mellow hiphop. Tzuyu’s glad for it; she prefers this kind of music the most since it suits her calm disposition. She sits at the top of the bed and jokingly rests her legs in Minghao’s lap, but when she moves them away he pulls them back into place, draping his arms across her legs. Tzuyu’s amused but pleased by that; she and Minghao seem to always have this unspoken playfulness between them. They're both more the quiet types, the reason they looked for a respite from the craziness in the living room in the first place, but they’ve both got a lurking feisty side to go along with it.

"So you never told me why you came to Korea," Tzuyu starts. Minghao cuts her a confused look.

"Haven't I?"

"Well, I know you were scouted at a dance thing like me, but what's the full story? The one you don’t tell in interviews, I mean."

As much as they're friends, Minghao has managed to remain somewhat of an enigma to her. He doesn't talk much about his past or personal stuff, at least not as much as Jun. Where Jun will never shut up, Minghao takes some prying.

"Well, I was 16 when I came here and I had been bboying for about 6 years by that point."

He casts his eyes up to the ceiling and then over at Tzuyu.

"You probably wonder why I left home for such a small company, but I was just ready to go at that point. The crowd I ran with was all about dancing and the craft, but… there was some ever-present dark shit surrounding the scene," Minghao says ominously.

"Dark shit?" Tzuyu asks, intrigued. "Like… gangs and stuff?"

"Yeah," Minghao says, and his flippant acknowledgement of it is dismaying. "I mean, it's to be expected with anything underground ‘cause it’s in the streets. I tried to stay out of the sketchy parts, but I saw some people get roughed up and I stayed in the scene anyway." He tugs at his tiny silver hoop earring, an uncharacteristic gesture of nervousness for him. Normally Minghao is the picture of unflappable. "But then someone I kinda knew got killed and it was just... over. I knew I had to get out."

"Wait, what? _Killed?_ " Tzuyu asks, her eyebrows drawing together in surprise, not sure if her ears are serving her properly. From the looks of Minghao, with his rainbow hair, wiry stature and cute features, she'd never have pegged him to be involved in anything unscrupulous. Then again it makes sense for his quiet, subdued demeanor and the sharp, biting manner of speaking that often punctuates it.

"Yeah. But don't go around saying this, by the way."

"Obviously," she reassures him.

"I mean, even some of my group members don't even know." Minghao gives her a look that reads as vulnerable, a rare thing for how much as he seems to avoid coming across that way. 

"Then why are you telling me?" Tzuyu asks, twisting a strand of her hair around her finger in uncertainty.

"You asked, and I trust you. I don't feel like you're gonna go out and tell the world or something," Minghao says. It’s reassuring to hear but so sad how they have to consider that when confiding in friends. Every personal detail about them is consumable, something to be bought and sold. Trust too then comes at an intangible price. "Besides, I don't even know the words to say half of this stuff in Korean. Too much effort." He says with a short, lighthearted laugh to lift the mood.

This makes Tzuyu wonder what she's really done to earn Minghao’s trust, other than just be there for him. Though, people have this way of sharing their secrets with her unprompted, like her quietude is enough reassurance for them. Maybe it's why she gets deemed wise for her age, because she's lived a dozen lifetimes through the stories shared with her alone.

"So you were never involved with it?" she asks, dubious of if she truly wants to hear his answer. She doesn’t want to think of Minghao that way, if he did do anything reprehensible, but her curiosity gets the best of her.

"I tried to stay out of it, but you gotta defend yourself. I carried a knife but I never needed to use it. After the guy I knew died I looked around and realized what the hell I had gotten myself into and that it wasn't the life I wanted. I got scouted by Pledis around that time and it was like the universe telling me to go," Minghao says with a shrug. For the heaviness of the topic he talks about it in such a breezy, nonchalant way.

“That’s good that you got out of there,” Tzuyu nods. She doesn’t really know what else to say.

“It wasn’t easy. I lost a lot of friends. Had to end things with my girlfriend at the time. The weeks between when I was cast and actually left a lot of people gave me shit about it,” Minghao says. “People will try to drag ya down to their level, not to say that I’m above my old friends or anything… but some people I know only ended up getting in deeper in the sketchy parts of the underground scene, that’s for sure.”

"You make my story seen tame." Tzuyu observes.

"How old were you when you left Taiwan?" Minghao asks. 

"13."

"It seemed tame when I was 13, too,” Minghao says with a short laugh. “You never know what shit people are hiding from you cause you're too young. Or what you're too naive to notice."

He doesn’t say it in a particularly serious way, but the weightiness of that seems to hang in the air for a moment, still.

Just then Mingyu tumbles into the room.

“Guys, Chaeyoung’s finally about to rap battle with Wonwoo,” Mingyu says excitedly, waving them over with his signature wide, crooked grin.

“Let’s go,” Minghao says, scooting to the edge of the bed and helping Tzuyu down. 

Minghao said it all so easily but it feels like they’ve found a new unspoken understanding between the two of them. Up until now, their friendship has been mainly lighthearted, with lots of jokes and shooting the breeze. Tzuyu’s glad that Minghao confided in her; it gives their relationship a dimension of complexity that it had been lacking up until this point. Tzuyu never pegged him for all of this, that’s for certain, and they likely won’t revisit this conversation, but knowing it all means that Minghao’s quirks make a whole lot more sense. 

 

It’s late February when Twice is called into JYPE for a meeting. Originally they hadn’t been scheduled to, so the girls sulk a bit because it’s already midnight and they had so been looking forward to watching a movie together tonight after their practices.

One of the JYPE PR representatives enters the conference room they’re gathered in, bowing and greeting the girls. The rep has her hair bound up in a bun and sports dark circles under her eyes; she likely works just as many hours as the girls do but with no team of professionals to artfully conceal the physical tells. She pulls a stack of papers from her briefcase and begins.

“Tomorrow an artist under JYP will have a scandal break. Here is our PR plan for how you all will respond to the situation,” she says, passing the papers around.

“Omo, Junhyeok?” Jungyeon says, staring at the front page in disbelief, referring to one of the members of Day6, a group that debuted nearly two months before Twice.

“Is it true?” Chaeyoung asks, leafing through the stapled handout.

“As of yet, that’s uncertain. Unfortunately, it looks likely,” the PR representative explains.

“Is JYP issuing a statement?” Nayeon asks, the top page of her packet held aloft as she glances up from her scanning.

“Yes. You’ll find the contents of it on page 5 of your handout,” the PR rep says. “Junhyeok will, unfortunately, be departing from JYP.”

The group is full of murmurs of shock and disbelief. Day6 debuted less than two months before Twice, and makes it more tangible that they are not immune to fragmentation in the group, even this early on. Not that they’ve ever felt completely secure since Tzuyu’s scandal in January, but still. This is the first JYP artist to depart from a group since Jay Park left 2PM years ago. Their immunity to discord is nothing but an illusion, and it’s shattered anew today.

“I’m here to inform you of all of this, but I’m also here to remind you of the dating clause in your contracts. You all should be reminded that the company will not protect our artists in the event of a dating scandal within 3 years after debut. Public notoriety is precarious and to be seen as dating is damaging and will jeopardize the future of your group and by extension, the company. Please stay mindful of that. You all have done well not to be seen in questionable situations, but we suggest that you all steer clear of any further interaction with males for the time being, particularly while the public spotlight is on JYP.”

Tzuyu doesn’t have to ask to know who all of the rest of her group members are thinking of. They’re friendly with other boy groups, but this would put a damper most directly on their burgeoning friendships with the Seventeen members. Tzuyu had been hopeful that they’d become close, like she heard that 2PM and SNSD once were, but it may not be meant to be. If only they could’ve spent a little more time together, before all of this.

 

The girls return home, the mood in the car and at the dorm subdued from the late hour and the bad news. They always make an effort to be cheerful and resilient but there’s an undercurrent of worry; the calm before the storm that the breaking news tomorrow will surely bring.

After showering and changing into her pajamas Tzuyu heads to the kitchen for a mug of tea before bed. She finds Jihyo already there, brewing her own cup.

Jihyo turns around and locks eyes with Tzuyu. There’s something between sadness and pity there. The news isn’t good for Jihyo, either.

“Do I need to say it?” Jihyo asks morosely. Tzuyu hesitantly shakes her head ‘no’, selecting a box of tea from the cabinet to occupy her nervous hands. 

“I know how much Jun and Minghao mean to you, but let’s lay low and think of the group for a while. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of what it was like to be protected during a scandal.”

Jihyo isn’t commanding and it’s not a lecture, she just sounds tired and overwhelmed. She’s normally the bubbly and brazen leader but every once in a while her cracks start to show. She must be affected by this news more than Tzuyu thought, and Tzuyu wonders what’s going on with Jihyo. Tzuyu abruptly feels like a bad friend for not paying more mind to her situation.

What Jihyo says drags up bitter memories though, of the scandal Tzuyu went through months ago. Tzuyu doesn’t show it to avoid being a burden and because she’s not one to share uncomfortable emotions, but there was a lasting impression. Jihyo’s right; Tzuyu can’t imagine what it would’ve been like to endure a scandal without the company supporting her every step of the way. They defended her to the media and never once made threats to remove her from the group, and if anything the company’s management of Twice after the fact had rocketed the group to further success. Facing it without that support seems… unimaginable.

It’s frustrating, too: the judgment of her personal life by the public, the utter commodification of her being, and the way that things she says could affect her sales, like a product. It’s part of the job that she didn’t anticipate in full. As much as they had been coached on etiquette and expectations of what not to say in interviews and on broadcasts, nothing truly prepared her for it. The disconnect and dehumanization in that is jarring to consider too deeply and too often. Idols are less than human to some; maybe that’s what Jihyo’s grappling with most. She traded her youth for this and could hardly be anything else, even if she wanted to. It’s easier to just think that she’s a kid fulfilling her dream, but moments like this make it difficult to ignore the less pleasant aspects that underlie their reality.

 

_Weibo—group chat_

_Jun, 7:14pm: still on for dinner tomorrow?_

_Tzuyu 7:14pm: actually I can’t_

_Tzuyu, 7:15pm: another JYP artist had a dating scandal so I have to lay low for a while_

_Tzuyu, 7:15pm: sorry guys :/_

_Minghao, 7:16pm: no worries_

_Jun, 7:16pm: yeah sorry zhou :/_

 

Jun tries to ignore the seed of disappointment growing in his chest in the weeks following. It seems like article after article floods the press, all of them discussing Day6 Junhyeok’s removal and JYP’s dating policy, ad nauseum. JYP artists cannot date for 3 years, he reads over and over. Like a reminder he never needed nor wanted. He tries to remind himself that his talk with Ryeowook was purely from a moral uncertainty standpoint, so it’s not that he misses Tzuyu like that. Their relationship has never been meant for more than friendship.

Sometimes Tzuyu wakes up the middle of the night, sheets soaked with sweat because in her dreams her world is crashing down around her, she is being villainized, fired, attacked. Every time it happens she picks up the phone and opens her messages to Jun, wavering for a moment in indecision before locking it and dropping it back onto her nightstand. She doesn’t need to concern him with this. It’s just her brain going off the rails for no reason. She refuses to call herself traumatized.

 

It’s halfway through March now, three weeks since the Day6 Junhyeok dating scandal broke, and Seventeen is gearing up for a comeback in just over a month. Every day is filled with what feels like endless practice, choreographing, workouts and costume fittings, hours of sleep cut down to the bare minimum already. Jun’s on the performance team so he’s tasked with working on the choreography for _‘Chuck,’_ their secondary promoted track, with the other performance team members. His Korean is decent but not good enough to write lyrics and he doesn’t know how to produce or compose, so choreography is the one thing he can contribute to the team.

Hoshi is normally fun and lighthearted but in the studio he’s serious and down to business. Maybe it’s all in Jun’s head but it feels like everything he suggests gets breezed over or dismissed, and Jun has started to feel useless because this is the only thing he can contribute to and still it feels like he’s coming up with nothing.

Jun has gone this long without talking to Tzuyu plenty of times in the past but the lack of control and finality of it this time is starting to play games with his mind. Thinking about it is only serving to throw into sharp clarity the things that he let fall by the wayside in the last few months. When was the last time he stayed late in the studio alone? When was the last time he came up with choreography of his own accord? When was the last time that he turned off the practice room lights as the last to leave?

He’s starting to feel demoralized by it all. Woozi is predictably harsh in recording, and that’s nothing new. Jun knows it’s because he wants their new tracks to be the best they can and received well; they all do. It still chips away at his morale.

The day after they get their parts for their promotional single, Jun stays late in the practice room. He has one line. _One._ It’s not even repeated throughout the song.

He needs to dance and not think right now. Jun puts on track after track, throwing himself at the floor and into his movements. What he doesn’t know is that Seungcheol is watching him, even when he flops flat onto his back in defeat and presses his palm to his eyes, letting out a frustrated yell.

Jun’s so burnt out, raw around the edges, and he doesn’t know what to do. He feels like not enough and doesn’t know how to be more. He feels like a disappointment, to everyone. He wants to be there for his team members but feels like they’re carrying him on their backs towards success, and he’s just riding along in the current, sucking them dry. He’s falling short, way under what he needs to be doing. His palms come away from his eyes, wet. He didn’t even realize that the frustration would elicit this response from him until it’s here.

Jun forces himself to get up the ground and plays the track he’s supposed to be choreographing to over and over, until he has a semblance of something to show for himself tomorrow. It’s late in the night when he finally lets himself leave. He’s the last to turn out the lights, this time.

The next day Jun shows what he’s got to the performance team—Hoshi, Dino and Minghao—and their reactions seem lukewarm.

“Well… here’s what I’ve got,” Hoshi says, rewinding the song to the same spot. He shows his choreography, and it’s harder hitting and more dynamic than Jun’s. Jun doesn’t know where Hoshi comes out of this stuff from, and it’s impressive but defeating all the same.

“Fine. Fine,” Jun seethes, trying and failing to mediate his irritation.

“Jun, what’s up with you today?” Minghao asks tentatively.

“Nothing’s up. Nothing. Except that everything I do keeps getting shot down so why the fuck am I even here?” Jun says in annoyance, slamming his water bottle down, trying in vain to withhold his temper.

“Whoa, Jun, you alright man?” Hoshi asks, eyes wavering with wariness and concern. Jun doesn’t see it though; his temper is already boiling over.

“No, Hoshi. No I’m fucking not,” Jun rakes his hands impatiently through his hair.

“Maybe you should take a breather,” Hoshi says hesitantly, like he’s talking to an agitated animal. Jun knows he’s being irrational, and that he should soften at the way that everyone is treating him, but he can’t take it right now. He’s normally so unlike this but it’s all coming to a head today. He brushes past Hoshi, still bristling, and runs up the stairs by two until he reaches the top floor of the Pledis building, breaking out the door to the roof where the cool spring air hits him in a gust. He stumbles out of the doorway and catches himself against the railing of the roof, folding his arms against it and leaning forward, chest heaving in exertion.

He just feels so useless, like he’s dragging his team down, and he just made everything absolutely worse.

 

Jun doesn’t go back to practice later that day. He can’t face the performance team right now. He knows his outburst was way out of line, but there’s been this continuous disquiet building in him that has to be a sign of something bigger. It goes beyond them or him. He’s been holding things in and it all came out today, in a messy, embarrassing way.

The members all fight amongst themselves from time to time; it’s to be expected with the pressure they face, with so many of them trying to fulfill so many roles for their groups production and all of the guys with differing opinions and dispositions. Jun’s usually an outsider to all of the conflict though, a bystander or a mediator, so it feels doubly embarrassing for him to have blown up like he did. He’s usually so optimistic, but evidently he’s fallible, too.

When Jun gets back to the dorm, Seungcheol is the first person he sees at the door. The gaze Seungcheol fixes Jun with tells Jun that he knows everything, even though the performance team isn’t home yet.

“Wash up, Jun. Let’s go out tonight,” Seungcheol says perfunctorily. There’s no use in fighting it.

 

It’s just Jun and Seungcheol at the bar this time, the smoky room abuzz with the noise of men playing pool and glasses clinking against various surfaces, the hall filled with salarymen come to work off some stress after hours.

“Jun, you’ve got to stop keeping everything to yourself,” Seungcheol says. Jun just toys with the glass in his hand, swirling the dregs of his beer around before taking a gulp. He doesn’t know what to say to Seungcheol because it’s all this nebulous cloud of discontent that he doesn’t know how to put into words.

“Bottling things up only leads to them exploding later,” Seungcheol says, hesitating. “Like today.”

So Seungcheol knows everything, as Jun suspected. In great detail, Jun has no doubt.

“What’s gotten into you these days? You’re normally never like this at all. I want to help you but I can’t read your mind,” Seungcheol says. 

Jun breathes a sigh, letting his eyes fall shut and sticking his tongue out between his lips to wet them, before pressing them together in a line.

“Why am I here, Seungcheol? What do I even do? I… I…” Jun trails off, staring through the wall in front of him.

“Whoa, Jun, what are you saying?” Seungcheol’s perplexed, looking at Jun with true confusion on his face.

“Face it. I can’t choreograph. I barely sing on our title track. I dance buried behind 12 other people, for the most part,” Jun says, taking a gulp from his drink.

“Jun, you’re asking why you’re on the team?” Seungcheol asks in disbelief, and something akin to amusement, like the idea of Jun being disposable is laughable to him. “Jun, we all feel like we’re not doing enough sometimes. It’s good that you care but don’t beat yourself up like this. Keep working hard and you’ll get your moment in the sun. It’s okay,” Seungcheol says, rubbing Jun on the back to comfort him. 

Jun remains silent, only gesturing for the bartender to bring him another.

“Are you sure that that’s all that this is about?” Seungcheol asks tentatively. Jun’s gaze meanders down to his hand, which is griping too tightly at his empty glass. “I know that the news with the girls has sucked…”

Jun sighs, the tension he’s holding in his shoulders relenting. Rather than anger there’s resignation. Seungcheol knew it even before he did. Seungcheol is friends with some of the Twice girls, so Jun is being insensitive in that respect, but Jun’s situation is different and he doesn’t even know where to begin with explaining it, or even if he should.

“What does it matter?” Jun says in defeat. Tzuyu is avoiding him, indefinitely, and yet… it feels like more than that. But what use would it be to admit it? To what end would it take him? It doesn’t even matter how he feels.

“I think it does matter, Jun,” Seungcheol says, fixing him with an intent look. The words are simple but they’re loaded with so much meaning beyond what’s on the surface. Seungcheol has this way of unraveling what’s going on with Jun before he can even admit it to himself.

“It can’t,” Jun says, his voice forlorn in a way that makes him feel embarrassed to show in front of Seungcheol. Seungcheol sighs heavily beside him.

“I can’t say I totally disagree with you there. Some of these circumstances are just out of our control. But if you have feelings for her—and I hate to be callous in saying it this way—it’s destructive to let it affect your work like this. Think of the team. Girls will always be there. But what we have right now… it’s tenuous.”

Jun doesn’t even bother with denying Seungcheol’s insinuation. He’s right about their groups status at the moment. Fame is a volatile thing, not to be taken for granted.

“I know. And it’s not all about that, of course. It’s not cut and dry with being frustrated about not being able to act on something,” Jun admits. “It’s the feeling of being out of control and deficient more than anything, I guess. Not just for any one thing, but for everything.”

Seungcheol nods slowly in understanding, like he’s been in Jun’s exact position before. Come to think of it, for the seven years Seungcheol spent in training, he probably has been.

“Well, ultimately we have to do the best with the what we’ve got,” Seungcheol says. “There are some things that are out of our power, but that’s life. Control is a fickle thing: an illusion, really. Let’s look at our situation and be happy for what we have. Compared to a lot of other groups, we’re doing really amazingly well. Let’s try to concentrate on that.”

Seungcheol’s right, and in saying so he makes Jun realize how petulant he’s being. He’s part of a successful group who is doing astonishingly well given how little time it’s been since they debuted and for being from a small company. Okay, so he gets one line in their single. That’s one more line than any other person with an unrealized dream of being an idol. He’s upset that he can’t see Tzuyu, but shouldn’t he be grateful that they’re even able to be friends in the first place? Shouldn’t he be empathetic to the fact that she and her group are so isolated right now, and that the rest of his group members can’t see the girls, either? He realizes how incredibly self-centered and wrapped up in his own problems he’s been these last few weeks, when there has been so much more pressure on everyone else to fulfill their duties in spite of his brooding.

He resolves instead to work harder instead of sulking, because the only way out is through.

 

Once back at the dorm Jun checks his phone to find a missed call and a voicemail from Tzuyu. It’s odd that she’d call in the first place, but he must not have heard it in the din of the bar earlier. He presses play then brings his phone to his ear and and her voice comes over the line.

_“Hey. I know I don’t normally call. I just missed you and wondered what you were doing, I guess. Sorry we can’t hang out these days... Call me some time. Well, have a good night, then. Bye, Jun.”_

Unbeknownst to him, a soft smile spreads its way across his face as he listens to it. Maybe he’ll make it through, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m very curious for how many people are quiet lurkers for this story. If that’s you then pretty please drop a lil smiley or something in the comments so I can know how many people I disappointed with this slow update ha ha ha ha. Nah but really, the more people who read the more motivation I have to write quickly. Maybe that’s vain but I’m just tryna be honest. Otherwise I feel like I’m writing for myself and go at my own (slow) pace.
> 
> P.S. shameless plug for my other work, “Caught Up,” if you want to find out why Nayeon is so close to the ’95 liners. Contains no spoilers particular to this story.


	7. seven

_Weibo—group chat_

_Minghao: yo Tzuyu I saw that we’re coming back on the same day_

_Tzuyu: !!!!_

_Tzuyu: btw I got the ok to see you guys again_

_Minghao: freeeeeedom_

_Jun: nice_

_Jun: you free for lunch this week?_

_Minghao: yeah we should chill before things get crazy_

 

Winter melts into spring and it’s late march, around a month until both Seventeen and Twice are set to have their comebacks. Tzuyu’s headed to meet Jun and Minghao at the Chinese restaurant that they used to frequent; while they’ve got the okay to meet up, it seems prudent that they not walk there together.

As Tzuyu waits to cross the street a tiny ladybug lands on her arm, and she brings her hand up to her face to greet her little friend. She loves this time of year, with the breeze and the blooming life everywhere. She’s greeted by a few fans on her walk, though everyone stays respectful and is understanding that she can’t take pictures with them as per JYP’s policy. As much as fans and the public can have wayward logic about some things, she’s glad to be a public figure in a country that seems to largely respect idols’ private lives.

Jun and Minghao are messing around on the street as she walks up; Jun’s got Minghao in a headlock and they’re tussling by the looks of it.

“What am I ever going to do with the two of you?” Tzuyu asks wryly as she approaches.

“Nice to see you, too,” Jun retorts, quirking an eyebrow at her as he lets Minghao go.

“Let’s head in,” Minghao says, dusting his hands off on his pants and holding the door open for them all.

“Junhui! Minghao! Tzuyu! It has been too long.”

As they enter the shop Auntie Mei approaches them at the front, and she is as short but warm and friendly as ever, her voice grainy with age and her silver hair twisted back in a clip. It’s been a while since they last visited but last time Auntie Mei had mentioned that she’d be on a trip for a while, so it’s a reunion for them all. They all take turns hugging Auntie and she busies herself with nagging Minghao for being a rail, as per usual.

“I brought back some special sauce ingredients from my trip that’ll be just the thing for it,” Auntie Mei says with a delighted gleam in her eye. “You all will love it.”

“Only tea for me this time please, Auntie,” Tzuyu says. Auntie Mei eyes her skeptically up and down and feels Tzuyu’s ribs.

“You’ll wither away at this rate, my dear,” she says with a tutt.

“My comeback is soon and I’ll be on broadcast often,” Tzuyu explains. As much as she wishes she could have some of the Chinese food that she so misses, her stomach is about to be bare on television nearly every day for over a month. Food can wait. 

“The lot of you, honestly,” Auntie Mei laments.

“ _I’ll_ eat it,” Jun volunteers, wrapping an arm around Auntie Mei’s shoulders. “I’m sure it’ll be wonderful.”

Auntie Mei grins, her face creasing fondly up at Jun.

“ _Someone_ appreciates me, then,” she quips, clapping her hands together in delight. She then ushers them all over to a booth, sliding the partition halfway shut before she pauses. “Oh, before you leave you all need to come upstairs. I brought something back for you.”

“Oh Auntie, you didn’t have to,” Jun says modestly.

“Oh, I know,” she replies with mirth in her eyes, then shuts the door behind her.

 

“So, how was Taiwan?” Jun asks from across the table. He and Minghao are squished into the booth beside one another, allowing Tzuyu to take the opposite side for herself. She’d just returned a few days ago from taking her exit exam for her middle school in Taiwan.

“Did you get us anything?” Minghao adds. Tzuyu rolls her eyes in derision before then there’s a rap at the door and Auntie is back with tea.

“Green tea. Good for metabolism,” Auntie Mei says with a wink at Tzuyu as she sets the tray down.

“Thank you,” they all chorus, and she slides the door back shut.

“Taiwan was kind of a whirlwind. So no, I didn’t get you anything,” Tzuyu says with a pointed look at Minghao. “I landed, took my exams, and then was back on a plane by the end of the day.”

As she’s speaking Jun pours a cup of tea, then blows on it and hands it to her.

“Is that seriously _all_ you’re going to have?” Jun asks in disbelief, as though the idea of skipping a meal is such an alien concept that he can't fathom it. He must dance a whole lot for how much he eats but how fit he manages to stay.

“One meal per day until comeback time,” Tzuyu replies with a resigned sigh, and then takes a sip of her tea. “I guess it’s different for you guys.”

“You could say that. Minghao will literally set alarms and wake up from a dead sleep so that he doesn’t miss a meal,” Jun snickers. Tzuyu surveys Minghao with envy; he’s so slim that she has trouble believing it.

“I wish. I’m going to Japan soon and will probably only get to try one or two things,” Tzuyu replies, doleful. 

“It’s Sakura season there right now, isn’t it?” Minghao asks, taking a sip of tea and then making a face and sticking out his tongue like he may have burnt it.

“Sakura?” Tzuyu asks.

“Cherry blossom season. The flowers are popular here but it’s kinda nuts in Japan. There’s cherry blossom flavored and themed _everything,_ ” Jun explains. “It’s wild; almost every food place and store has something with it. You’ll have to try it and all and report back.”

“Hmm. I may do,” Tzuyu replies. There’s a rap at the door and it slides open again. Auntie Mei places plates in front of Jun and Minghao and Tzuyu stares at them wistfully until one piled with vegetables is slid in front of her.

“Steamed veggies, with garlic too. Full of fiber, good for digestion,” Auntie says with an encouraging nod when Tzuyu looks up at her questioningly.

Tzuyu’s stomach grumbles and she accepts it without protest, saying her thanks.

“So, how’s the comeback prep going?” Tzuyu asks, dipping a floret of her broccoli into some soy sauce. She tells herself that she’s only mildly tortured by the aroma of Jun and Minghao’s food. Nope, she does not need it. These vegetables will do just fine.

Minghao stays silent beside Jun, allowing him to answer the question for himself. Jun hadn’t said anything to Tzuyu about his outburst and isn’t sure he wants to muddle her view of him like that. She’s never seen him as anything short of positive or playful, and he’d prefer to maintain that image.

“It’s alright,” Jun settles on, “there’s some discord when you get so many people working on the same project, obviously, but on the whole everything has smoothed out. Everyone has been pretty good at communicating and talking things out when there are problems.”

It’s vague enough, but encompassing of the truth nonetheless. Tzuyu nods in understanding as she chews, her hair bouncing up and down with the motion.

“What about you?” Jun asks.

“I’m not sleeping much these days, but when am I ever? I think this comeback will be successful. We’re going with the same fresh, bright image again that really worked for us last time. The song’s upbeat and the choreography is cute,” Tzuyu says succinctly.

“Should we make a bet?” Minghao says with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“A bet?” Tzuyu asks.

“Yeah. First one to win on a music show, wins,” Minghao clarifies, chomping down on a bite.

“That’s a little bit arrogant, don’t you think?” Tzuyu snorts.

“I prefer to think of myself as a realist,” Minghao says with a shrug, mouth half-full. “We’ve both won rookie awards. It would stand to reason that one of us might be able to sneak in a win before all of the big groups come back later in the summer.”

“So what would we win?” Tzuyu asks, intrigued.

“Loser has to put a silly picture on SNS?” Jun suggests.

“Nah, too mild,” Minghao dismisses it.

“If we lose, don’t say I didn’t try to make it agreeable,” Jun grumbles, stabbing none too gently at his food. Tzuyu steeples her fingers and leans in.

“Loser has to put an embarrassing picture chosen _by the other team_ on SNS,” she says slyly.

“That is… slightly evil,” Jun marvels.

“I like it,” Minghao says gleefully, as though he’s already envisioning ten ways to ruin Tzuyu’s image with one picture.

Tzuyu just does a little happy dance. She may not look it, but she can be quite devious when the situation calls for it.

“That looks so good,” Tzuyu laments after she’s finished her plate of bland vegetables, chin propped up on her hand while she stares at the boys’ plates forlornly. As much as Auntie had tried to make her food palatable, they’re still steamed vegetables when it comes down to it.

Jun picks up a piece of his chicken with his chopsticks and brings it towards her mouth, making a little _‘aah’_ sound.

“One bite,” Jun says to answer the pained and conflicted look on Tzuyu face, before she can argue. She complies and opens her mouth. After weeks of eating bland food the flavor feels like it’s blooming beautifully on her taste buds, filling her world with a color and happiness she hadn’t noticed it was missing.

“Two bites?” she says timidly, and Jun and Minghao both chuckle at her before Jun feeds her another.

 

After their dinner Auntie Mei leads them up the back stairs of the restaurant to her apartment. Every inch of the living room is decorated in fabrics, patterns, vases, screens, plants and paintings; the entire room is like a fractal, with more detail for every examined inch, and bursting with color. The cluttered restaurant downstairs is mild compared to this.

“Auntie, I’m going to use your bathroom, ok?” Minghao asks, and she waves him off as he departs down the adjacent hallway.

Tzuyu takes a seat on the ornately patterned couch while Auntie Mei putts around the room, fishing out a paper bag. Jun busies himself with fawning over a small orange cat, scratching its chin while the low bass of its purr fills the room.

“Aha! I brought back some herbs for you all. Good for health,” Auntie says, unloading the bag. “And here, Tzuyu. This is for you.”

The auntie totters over and hands Tzuyu a small, bloodred velvet box. On one hand, for their relationship of having spent time together sporadically the gift is a bit over the top, but on another hand outlandish gifts are a bit par for the course when one is famous. For the auntie’s advancing age Tzuyu doesn’t dare question it, only opening the jewelry box when Auntie nods excitedly at her.

“Oh, this is too much,” Tzuyu says in awe as she opens it. Inside is a dainty gold chain with several small beads: jade, rose quartz, and a glittering white stone. The auntie waves her concerns away.

“Good luck. Keeps the evil spirits away,” she says with a happy gleam in her eye. In this moment, Tzuyu is overcome with memories of her own grandmother, who was also generous, charming and obliquely superstitious like Auntie Mei. In their brief meetings Auntie has shown a striking fondness for Tzuyu, likely because her own grandchildren live so far away as she’d mentioned in the past. Like Tzuyu, Minghao and Jun, the distance had forced her to adopt a makeshift family in them. For this, Tzuyu thinks to herself that she should pay Auntie more visits in the future.

Tzuyu holds the necklace up to examine it; the gold chain glitters in the hazy lighting of the room.

“Junhui, help her,” Auntie Mei commands to Jun beside her, swatting at his shoulder and nodding her head towards Tzuyu who fixes her with an uncertain gaze. “A lady should never have to put on her own necklace.”

Tzuyu stands and hands Jun the necklace, and she turns around and pulls her hair to the side. In this moment she feels like she travelled back in time to that night weeks ago that he stood behind her. It’s not quite the same and it feels like so long ago already, but the familiar feeling of apprehension wells up inside of her anew.

Jun reaches around her front to thread the necklace around her neck, and his fingertips ghost over her skin as he works on the clasp, lingering just the slightest bit as he adjusts it to be in the center. Her stomach does a little flip at his gentle touch, and the care with which he fastens it.

She turns around and it’s like the world fuzzes out, and it’s just him looking at her with a softened but intent expression. What she doesn’t notice is Auntie’s satisfied smirk behind Jun.

The door creaks and Minghao exits the bathroom, shattering the moment that they’d briefly gotten lost in. Tzuyu beams at Minghao to compensate for her skittish reaction and brings a hand to her necklace.

“Minghao! Look at the beautiful necklace that Auntie brought me.”

Jun is left only with his head spinning in confusion for the complicated look that Tzuyu just fixed him with. She may forever remain a mystery, at this rate.

 

 

“Make room for hyung on the couch,” Jeonghan says, shimmying in between Dino and Vernon.

“Who has popcorn?” Hoshi asks, slotting himself into a spot on the floor between Dokyeom and Woozi.

“Any last bidders for the final lineup bets?” Mingyu calls out, holding something akin to a Superbowl betting chart. Leave it to him to be crass about a show determining others’ futures. Leave it to the rest of the members to participate. Idols they may be, but they’re teenagers and early 20-somethings all the same.

It’s the first of April, and the Seventeen members are all currently crowded around the TV for the Produce 101 finale in which the final lineup of the group IOI is announced. They’d all watched the last 10 episodes of the survival show with varying levels of attention, but the show to form a girl group has come to grip the nation and tonight is the finale. That, and the fact that it involves some of their company members means that all 13 of the Seventeen members are now crowded around the TV to watch the final episode.

“No matter what happens, we have to support the rest of the Pledis girls,” Seungcheol says from his spot at the corner of the couch.

“Of course we would!” Hoshi says, before chomping down on a handful of popcorn.

 

The group is full of shock and laughter during the episode, and from time to time they even throw popcorn at the screen. The performances and songs are killer and Mnet seems to be drawing the member reveals out for as long as possible,

“Sohye!” Dino shouts in disbelief, growing sheepish when the rest of the members fix him with critical looks. He gapes, trying to defend himself. “She’s likeable and charismatic, but… for a girl group?”

None of them correct him. They all know how difficult it’ll be for Sohye, who never trained to sing and dance, to have to keep up with everyone over the next 11 months that IOI will be active.

Over the course of the episode, the lineup of IOI is revealed to include Pledis trainees Nayoung and Jieqiong. Eunwoo, the only other Pledis trainee who has made it this far, is eliminated and Jun is disappointed for her; he knows she must be crestfallen. After all of the years the Seventeen members spent training together with the girl trainees, he’s developed a decided soft spot for them all.

On the other hand, it's been so long since Jun last saw Jieqiong. Before Produce 101 started filming in December and Seventeen's promoting last fall they'd actually been fairly good friends. Along with Minghao they'd been some of the few Chinese trainees at Pledis. Though she'd segregated herself more to assimilate and learn Korean and was de facto isolated in practices specifically for the girls, they'd all remained friends. Snapchat had been her and Jun’s main mode of communication, as Jieqiong had been better friends with Minghao since the start and MingMing before him. Jieqiong’s friendly, and she and Jun have remained close over the years and get along fine, but he had never spent much time alone with her outside of practice or group gatherings, and consequently had never been exceptionally close. Jun found Jieqiong to be funny and thoughtful but their friendship had remained surface level with most things.

Nayoung had been a harder egg to crack. Offstage that girl is like the opposite of reactive, only staring and observing stoically to the point that it could get a little unnerving. Jun had felt a sense of accomplishment and even a tiny bit of pride the first time he’d gotten her to crack the slightest of smiles at him. 

Jun has mixed feelings on whether the final lineup are the best candidates to join I.O.I. but then again if he had it his way, all of the Pledis Girls would be in there. This is why Jun could never put together groups; he’s too soft and sentimental and wants everyone he knows to have their chance, even at the cost of including the under qualified. Some of this is a lasting effect of Mingming’s leaving the company nearly 2 years ago. Mingming had been Jun’s first friend since arriving to Korea, and though he’d trained with them for years he’d ultimately been let go from the company around the time that Minghao joined. The loss of his closest friend had been a bitter blow at the time, and Jun had gone through a particularly low point in the wake of his departure. He’d gained a softer heart towards other trainees as a result of it all, a difficult thing in an industry so harsh and competitive. 

“Somi made it!” Vernon says, clapping his hands together.

“Isn’t she pretty good friends with Chaeyoung?”

“Isn’t she like, _15?"_

Somi had completed along with all of the Twice girls for a spot in their group and had been the only contestant to join Produce 101 from JYP. She’d apparently been extremely well-liked at the time and appearing on Produce 101 had breathed new life into her public notoriety. She came in first place, beating the second place contestant by nearly double the votes.

“We should message Nayoung and Zieqiong congratulations,” Seungcheol suggests, and they all gather round to film a short video of congratulations and good luck.

Later Jun messages Zieqiong privately as well. She’ll be getting her phone back today if his estimates are correct, and though it may be buried under a deluge of well wishes it only feels right to individually congratulate his friend.

_Snapchat_

__Jun: congratulations! Proud of you._ _

__To his surprise she messages him back soon after._ _

___Snapchat_ _ _

___Zieqiong: thanks Jun ^_^ it still feels pretty surreal_ _ _

___Jun: going back to real life might be crazy. I’m here if you ever need help_ _ _

___Zieqiong: or unsolicited advice ㅋㅋㅋ_ _ _

___Jun: that’s unsolicited advice from a sunbae to you, hoobae :p_ _ _

___Zieqiong: ㅋㅋㅋㅋ_ _ _

___Jun: see you at Pledis soon, I guess?_ _ _

___Zieqiong: we’re jumping straight into prep for promotions, so maybe? If not, see you backstage at music shows!_ _ _

___Jun: :o_ _ _

__

__Midway through April Twice heads to Japan for KCON. It’s their first trip to Japan as a whole group and the Japanese girls are babbling excitedly about the things that they have to squeeze in during their precious few free hours. None of them are from Tokyo so it’s an exciting trip for them in any respect._ _

__The first thing Tzuyu notices in Japan is the crystal blue sky, a wide, clear expanse punctuated by a few cottony clouds. The air is cool and breezy, and everything seems to be covered—whether by nature or deliberate decoration—a pale baby pink. Everywhere she looks, things are adorned with cherry blossoms. The tree branches covered in the flowers sway calmly in the breeze, and it’s bizarre how quiet Tokyo is for the size of the city._ _

__One of their first stops is at a convenience store. Everything is in Japanese which Tzuyu has no hope of understanding, so she pulls Sana along with her as her guide. She points out a bottle of pink soda and asks timidly, “Sakura?”_ _

__Sana nods her head ardently and takes down a bottle._ _

__“I’ve never seen this! It looks good though. Oh, I miss Sakura season!” Sana says in her voice, which is bubbly and bright by default._ _

__Seeing it Tzuyu’s reminded of Jun’s mention of Sakura and his command to try things, so she picks up a bottle to take back for him and Minghao to try. There’s some cherry blossom patterned socks near the register for 100 yen so she grabs them for him too, just to be cheeky._ _

__In the afternoon they make their way to the KCON venue and spend the day in rehearsals and sound checks before performing, both by themselves and with their 2pm sunbaes. Ever since her scandal in January had affected their promotion in China—Nichkhun and Chansung in particular—she’d grown far more timid in their presence. In practice however the two had made it a point to be friendly and inclusive towards her, assuaging Tzuyu’s guilt about the whole situation. It’s not her fault, she still has to remind herself, but it still feels unjust that her affairs would affect them so._ _

__Late that night, after their performances are done for the day the girls all gather together in Momo and Jungyeon's room back at the hotel._ _

__"So, first Japan performance down," Nayeon says from her chair in the corner, her body wrapped around a pillow which is serving as a substitute for her usual giant stuffed toy._ _

__"I can't believe I stumbled over my Japanese onstage!" Sana moans, burying her face in Mina's shoulder. Mina pats her head and nods to show her sympathy. Tzuyu feels her pain; speaking two languages can be hard at times since it's difficult to keep them both separate. Even when she speaks to Minghao and Jun she finds herself peppering in Korean words from time to time. It feels more natural not to have to delineate between the two, the trouble is that only a few people would understand her if she were to blur both._ _

__"It's ok, it's intimidating the first time. You'll do better next time," Jihyo says, ever the encouraging leader._ _

__“Did you all hear that Somi is gonna be promoting at the same time as us?” Chaeyoung looks up from her phone._ _

__“Somi!!” Momo and Sana chorus happily, and all of the girls make noises of joy at the news._ _

__“I’m still so glad she won first place. She really deserves it,” Chaeyoung says. Her statement has a weighty significance for them all; each Twice member feels a morsel of guilt that Somi didn’t make it into their group but still, none of them would trade their spots for her. It’s a selfishness that they don’t dare to articulate but all feel._ _

__“Seventeen is promoting with us, too,” Jihyo says from her spot on the bed. The girls all clap happily again._ _

__“I feel like it’s been ages since I’ve seen any of them,” Jungyeon notes. “Nayeon, how have Seungcheol, Jeonghan and Joshua been?”_ _

__“Well we’ve only met up once since the whole scandal happened back in February. Jeonghan is cutting his beautiful long hair, which is truly tragic news if you ask me,” Nayeon says, nestling her chin into her pillow in her consternation._ _

__“ _Wae??_ Like Chaeyoung short or Jungyeon-unnie short?” Jihyo asks._ _

__“Not sure. I made Seungcheol promise he’d snap it to me though so I’ll report back.”_ _

__“Chae, how are Mingyu and Wonwoo?”_ _

__“They’re alright. Wonwoo keeps writing these emo raps so I’m keeping tabs on him but otherwise they seem fine,” Chaeyoung says, looking up from her phone._ _

__“You and Wonwoo, eh? Anything going on there?”_ _

__Chaeyoung locks her phone screen and drops it on the floor beside her, lounging back on her hands and letting out a resigned puff of air._ _

__“Don’t you think he’s too old for me? Besides, I don’t see him like that.”_ _

__Tzuyu can’t help but calculate their birthdays in her head and realize that she and Jun are the same distance apart as Chae and Wonwoo. Not that it matters. Nope, definitely not. Tzuyu's not sure why that stabs at her heart a little bit to think about._ _

__“I really don’t mean to be a party pooper, but guys, just a reminder about the whole dating thing. I know some JYP artists like Jokwon and Min have admitted to dating before the 3 year ban is up, but regardless of what you do you need to be smart about it.” Jihyo says. The implication of that is strong though Tzuyu can't help but notice that Jihyo doesn’t explicitly tell them not to date. She can be quite the slippery one. “Dating scandals are disproportionately harmful to girl groups. I'm not saying it's right, it's just the truth. As much as we've been successful until now we can't jeopardize it. Of course we've all talked about it but it bears repeating.”_ _

__What Jihyo says weighs on them all. It’s true; girls usually do bear the brunt of backlash when dating scandals are revealed to the public. It’s yet another reminder of the possessive nature of fan culture. So many people become enamored with idols as a form of escapism. Tzuyu’s not immune, either; she was obsessed with certain boy bands in her youth, too. Idol worship is a seductive thing, and the industry plays to that._ _

__Nayeon nods along, face devoid of expression, Tzuyu has to wonder if there's more to Nayeon’s friendships than there would seem. Or maybe it's the same as Tzuyu, where she worries about putting her friendships in jeopardy. It’s a delicate balance, one she’s still learning to master. They all are._ _

__

__The days running up to both groups’ new song releases are filled with a dizzying mix of photo shoots, rehearsals, stage costume fittings, recordings, last minute adjustments to choreography and saying a few prayers. However, with the music videos filmed and all of the pre-release teasers taken care of there’s a bizarre lull in the days before both Twice and Seventeen’s songs are released: a foreboding quiet before the furor of their impending comebacks._ _

__Tzuyu and Jun take the opportunity to meet up for what will probably be the last time before their rounds of promotions come to a close. They invite Minghao but he cryptically says that he has _‘things to take care of’_ and disappears for a day, as Jun knows him to occasionally do. He never asks where Minghao goes; he isn’t sure he wants to know, for that matter._ _

__Jun and Tzuyu meet up at a café to chat, and sit in a booth in the back that’s out of the way. She even pulls the plant beside the booth in a tiny bit to obscure them further._ _

__“Paranoid, much?” Jun chuckles at her._ _

__“I prefer to think of it as being careful,” Tzuyu replies._ _

__“It feels like it’s been so long since we last saw one another,” Tzuyu laments after they collect their coffees. They’re always busy but the last few weeks have been especially so. Twice continued to perform special stages in addition to all of their recording sessions, music video filming and regular dance rehearsals. Somehow, staying up for days that grew ever-longer made it seem like there had actually been more time since they’d last seen one another, even though it was less so. Jun has been busy too; Seventeen’s choreography wasn’t finished in time for the MV so they’re rushing to polish it, still._ _

__“Did you miss me?” Jun asks, chewing on his straw._ _

__“No,” she says unconvincingly, looking down shyly. Tzuyu grins when she looks up at Jun to find him smiling fondly at her._ _

__“How was Japan?”_ _

__“It was nice. We really only got to spend a day there and half of that was spent rehearsals, sound checks and recording for KCON. You know the whole deal.” Tzuyu swirls her straw in her drink before taking a sip. “The cherry blossoms were everywhere. Literally inescapable. Oh! That reminds me: I got you this.”_ _

__From her bag she pulls out a bottle of blush pink liquid and a tiny little parcel wrapped up with a bow._ _

__“It’s nothing amazing,” Tzuyu says as a qualifier, handing it all over to Jun. Upon further examination the bottle is Sakura pepsi, and he unwraps the parcel, taking great pains not to tear the paper._ _

__“Socks?”_ _

__It’s a pair of white socks with a pattern of tiny little cherry blossoms speckled over them. It’s simple but Jun is speechless with how touched he is for her remembering his mentioning it and thinking of him while she was away. He’s filled with the overwhelming urge to close the gap between them, to hug her or something, but they’re in public so he restrains himself._ _

__“Oh, shoot, I forgot to bring an album for you.” Tzuyu mutters, rifling through her bag as though it may materialize if she looks hard enough._ _

__“An album for me?”_ _

__“Yeah, the girls and I all signed it for you and the other guys. A token of friendship, you know. Nayeon sent it with me because she thought you’d all get a kick out of being able to listen to it a few days before it dropped. Don’t tell anyone from JYP though. I think they’d frown on us sharing ‘trade secrets.’”_ _

__“I’ll have to tell Woozi not to copy any of it in the next few days,” Jun quips._ _

__“Not that I even have it to give you, though. Unless…” a mischievous look takes over Tzuyu’s features. “We could go to JYP to get it.”_ _

__“First you’re trying to cover yourself with a plant and now you’re inviting me to the building where people are highly likely to pass by and recognize us?” Jun asks incredulously._ _

__She just shrugs._ _

__“You can use the maintenance entrance.”_ _

__This is how Jun ends up around the back of the JYP building, not nearly far enough from the dumpster for his liking. He finds this all slightly absurd but when Tzuyu’s got a mission, there’s no fighting it. He swipes Tzuyu’s card at the door and makes his way to the dingy freight elevator. It all feels very unglamorous. The things he does for her._ _

__She meets him where the elevator doors open on the 4th floor and presses a finger to her lips, eyes twinkling deviously as she takes him by the hand and leads him through the labyrinthine halls of the JYP building._ _

__They make it up 3 flights of stairs, down 3 hallways and past 2 recording booths when Tzuyu tenses at the sound of a deep voice in the impending distance._ _

__"That's JYP PD-nim", she says, low and stricken, and she pulls open a door and pushes Jun inside of it; he feels his back press up against a thick throng of fabrics; it’s a clothing closet, apparently. She holds a finger to Jun's lips and looks at him frantically as the voices grow louder, and only relaxes when they fade down the hallway._ _

__It’s then that she becomes acutely aware of the way she's thrown her body fully into Jun's in her hurry, and the way Jun is holding her steady, his hand against the small of her back. A few of his fingers have managed to slip beneath the fabric of her shirt, rumpling up the cotton and dimpling into the skin there, both to hold her and in the tension of their predicament moments ago._ _

__She gapes up at him, their faces mere inches apart. This moment feels so precarious, like his ability to control himself is just about out the window. Her finger slides down and away from shushing him, and the way she’s looking at his lips is like torture._ _

__She buries her forehead into the crook of his neck to avoid it and he presses his eyes shut, letting out a heavy breath and relaxing his arms that are around Tzuyu._ _

__She doesn't have to say it. Neither does he._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoyed this please do comment, no need to worry about being coherent or elegant or anything. I can feel myself losing a little focus on this story so the comments keep me going with motivation to write!!


	8. eight

Comeback day. Energy in the van is on high, burning bright as the boys make their way to their first music show. As their second comeback they're beyond the level of being nervous but there's an element of thrilling anticipation to their first few performances, always.  
The day starts before the sun rises and is full of reminders from their leaders, brusque and hurried instructions from music show staff, and a permanent tornado of stylists around them. Jun finds himself practicing the choreography and his part time and time again. As much as it might seem like so little time for him to be in the center, he’ll make it count.

"Look, it's Tzuyu," Minghao nudges Jun and gestures up ahead. They’re in a hallway in the guts of the backstage area, and she's trailing along with her group with her eyes glued to her phone as her fingers flit across the keyboard.

"Oh, yeah. Yeah." Jun responds. _Eloquent, Jun,_ he thinks.

"Sooo we should say hi...?" Minghao draws his words out, curving them into a question as he surveys Jun curiously.

"Yeah, you’re right," Jun replies with a brisk nod.

Minghao gives Jun a skeptical look and then weaves through the crowd, an unspoken command for Jun to follow.

She smiles wide at their greeting, but Jun doesn't miss the momentary flash of something inscrutable when they first catch her attention.

“Hey, how are you guys?” Tzuyu asks.

“Good. We just filmed our rehearsal a few minutes ago, actually,” Minghao replies.

“We’re going soon. Just headed to get our mics on now,” Tzuyu says, tugging on her silver hoop earring.

“Your first comeback must be exciting?” Minghao asks, and Tzuyu nods with a hesitant smile.

“It is. Especially since… well, you know,” she says evasively. They do all know; it’s her groups first music show broadcasts since her scandal back in January. The echoes of it must still ring through her mind too often for comfort. She rubs her arm, a nervousness pervading her usually cool and unflappable demeanor.

“Tzuyu!” Jihyo calls out, trailing behind their group which is far down the hall. “Hi guys!” Jihyo says with a wave to Jun and Minghao when she catches all of their attention, then redirects her focus. “Tzuyu we gotta go!”

“See ya later, Tzuyu,” Minghao and Jun say.

“Bye guys,” Tzuyu replies, giving them a hesitant smile and jogging down the hall to reunite with her group.

When she turns the corner Minghao fixes his attention on Jun.

“Okay, what’s up with you two?” Minghao asks critically, unwavering in his directness.

“What? Who?” Jun asks innocently, as though he couldn’t possibly know what Minghao means. 

Minghao just gives Jun a look like his brain must’ve fallen out.

“You and Tzuyu.”

“Nothing’s up with us,” Jun replies with the best look of confusion that he can manage.

Minghao puffs air out of one side of his lips in resigned consternation and rolls his eyes up to the ceiling.

"You're a bad liar. Did something happen between you two?"

“No.”

It’s only half a lie. 

 

_1 week ago—_

_"That's JYP PD-nim", she says, low and stricken, and she pulls open a door and pushes Jun inside of it; he feels his back press up against a thick throng of fabrics; it’s a clothing closet, apparently. She holds a finger to Jun's lips and looks at him frantically as the voices grow louder, and only relaxes when they fade down the hallway._

_It’s then that she becomes acutely aware of the way she's thrown her body fully into Jun's in her hurry, and the way Jun is holding her steady, his hand against him by the small of her back. A few of his fingers have managed to slip beneath the fabric of her shirt, rumpling up the cotton and dimpling into the skin there, both to hold her and in the tension of their predicament moments ago._

_She gapes up at him, their faces mere inches apart. Her finger slides down and away from shushing him, and the way she’s looking at his lips is like torture. This moment feels so precarious, like his ability to control himself is just about out the window._

_She buries her forehead into the crook of his neck to avoid it and he presses his eyes shut, letting out a heavy breath and relaxing his arms that are around Tzuyu. They linger, her face pressed against the column of his neck, exhales warm against his skin._

_This is how they stay for one, two, three heartbeats, and then Tzuyu unwinds herself, pulling away with a step back. Jun catches her hand on its descent; her eyes flit down to it and then back up to his. His stare is sharp and dangerous._

_He steps forward._

_Her heart is thrumming, sound fading out as blood roars in her ears. He places a hand beneath her chin, running the pad of his thumb over her cheek. Her eyes, so close and fixed to his, are dark with something rapturous and evocative. It makes his insides molten and unfurl an all-consuming, want—need—for more, more, more._

_Instead, she sinks back against the door, cowering._

_“You should go,” her voice cuts under a whisper, attaches weights to his heart and drowns it._

_“If that’s what you want,” he replies after a silence that is long, too long. She drops her hand from his and it clambers behind her, graceless, for the handle. Her eyes look anywhere but his. Because what else can she do?_

 

What had she meant? Whenever Jun isn’t practicing or working on something or spending time with the guys, the words creep back in his mind which replays them cruelly without relent, carving away at his own heart with each time.

_“You should go.”_

Was he wrong about her? It felt as though they'd been building a slow, halting but progressive momentum. Jun’s confidence shrivels at the thought that he’d been presumptuous, had seen what he wanted to beyond the reality of it. Had he read too far into Tzuyu’s thoughtfulness, and the way that she looks at him, full of endearment and rapt attention; the way that she touches him: so readily, so effortlessly?

But then, desiring and deserving are separated by a vast ocean of obligation, Jun full well knows. He knows that what he wants is not permissible, at least not for her. Dear god, he _knows._

He’d thrown himself into his work in the days following instead; still is. Seventeen is set for another comeback close after their current one—so close that they’re preparing for it in the midst of their music show schedules—followed immediately by their Asia tour. There’s always more work to be done than there seem to be hours in the day, and for once he’s glad for it.

All three leaders observe him with a reserved, watchful curiosity, as Jun becomes hyper-focused on his work. There’s a day that he enters the studio late to find Seungcheol, Woozi and Hoshi in there talking hurriedly, maybe even arguing from the sound of it, but they cut off abruptly when he enters. They watch him carefully without comment but Jun doesn’t care. They can speculate all they want.

Ryeowook’s words run through his mind, too though.

_"Everybody does it."_

Well, maybe not everybody.

 

It’s their first week of comebacks still when Tzuyu spies Jun backstage down the hall. She makes to surreptitiously back away and is about to turn around a corner when she hears him call her name.

Christ. Maybe if she just keeps walking and acts like she didn’t hear him…?

She hears the swish of his clothes and puff of his breath as he catches up to her, turning her by the upper arm.

“Hey, I called for you,” Jun says, a hurt edge to his voice.

“Sorry, I didn’t hear you,” Tzuyu says, trying to push a bouncy cheerfulness into hers.

She knows he doesn’t believe her. She knows. But she can’t face him right now. She’s a painful mix of embarrassed and intimidated and scared, and confronting it seems like the most daunting thing she can imagine, more so by far than going onstage to perform for a deafening a crowd that’s blurred into a churning blackness by the blinding stage lights.

“Tzuyu, let’s not be like this,” Jun says, cutting through the pleasantries and straight to the crux of their awkwardness. “What happened, happened. It’s all just a misunderstanding. But we’re still friends, aren’t we?”

They are. Well, they can be.

“Yeah,” Tzuyu replies. “Yeah, you’re right,” she repeats with more conviction. If he can put it all aside for the sake of their friendship, then so can she. “Of course we are.”

Jun smiles now in reassurance, both in himself and to her.

“Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

“You can count on it. Especially if you lose our bet,” 

Jun raises his eyebrows and looks away with a scoff, playful. 

“In your dreams, Zhou.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she waves his criticisms off.

They slip back into their easy cadence, like this. There’s a new touch of careful reserve that colors their actions from time to time, but otherwise balance is restored. 

 

Jun can barely wrap his mind around it; it's like he's watching from far away as many of the Seventeen members break into tears, the other half of the group overjoyed (if a little stunned) as confetti rains down around them. It's a wild blur until he's handed a mic to give his acceptance speech in Mandarin, and he tries to remember who all to thank and how to thank them as his brain slows its ability for rational thought in his shock.

Did they really win?... _They won!_ They won a _music show._

Woozi for one takes to sobbing quietly on Jun's shoulder. Woozi's usually curt and distant even though they're same-age friends, but in his vulnerable inability to hold back his relief and joy, Jun just hugs him, and from time to time endeavors to wipe away his tears. He along with Hoshi bear an enormous burden in the team. After so many years in training, after countless nights spent composing or choreographing allowing for only 2 or 3 hours of sleep (if that), for them to achieve their first win must feel like an endless, hard-fought battle _finally_ won.

From there it’s a blurry encore and rush of bodies as the other idol groups leave the stage. Jun wants so badly to remember this moment but it’s all headrush, full with congratulations, cheers and tears, along with a chaotic and unsuccessful attempt to build a human tower. It doesn’t feel real yet.

They won. _They won._ Their first music show win.

Backstage the guys disperse, the staff helping them collect their things and to pack up the room. Reality still hasn’t set in yet. The coordis help them change and their leaders’ tears have dried—until wait, they’re crying again—and they’re all being ushered out of the Show Champion building to leave for the day. 

Winning feels like the most incredible thing. They’ve won awards before but nothing feels like they’ve _made it_ more than this. Up until now it’s all been prefaced with _rookie_ awards but this is their first big, real one, with no training wheels. The significance is near-suffocating in its enormity.

Later that night, when it’s all dark and dead and quiet at the dorm, Minghao crawls into Jun’s bed. Normally Jun would tease him about it but he stays mum for now. He and Minghao have both made sacrifice upon sacrifice, even quitting high school and leaving their families to come to Korea for all of this. In the uncertainty of the industry it had been an enormous risk, which after long years of training had ultimately, mercifully paid off. Neither of them cried at their award stage, but after a while Minghao has a few tears sliding down his face, illuminated only by the moonlight peeking in through the window. Jun wipes them away, knowing that he may succumb to the same fate if Minghao cries long enough.

“We did it,” Jun whispers in Mandarin as he grabs Minghao’s hand, still in awe. The significance of the language shared only by them is heavy, an emblem of their sacrifices. Minghao presses his eyes shut and more tears escape; he’s not one for crying if he can help it.

“Hey Minghao, if you keep crying you’re going to look like crap tomorrow on broadcast,” Jun murmurs playfully, his voice wavering only a tiny bit in the emotion that’s closing his throat. It all just feels like so… so much, still. He wipes his thumb at his own eyeline to wick away the moisture there.

Minghao scoffs; the noise is heavier than usual.

Tomorrow is another day to come, with more to prove and more wins to achieve. In a few hours the slate will be wiped new, but for now, for this suspended moment in time they hold this beautiful, irrevocable, golden thing in their hearts. They won.

 

_Weibo—group message_

_Tzuyu: congratulations guys! (✿◠‿◠)_

_Minghao: thanks yo_

_Jun: get your selection of embarrassing pictures ready_

_Tzuyu: noooooo_

_Minghao: ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ_

_Jun: ㅋㅋㅋㅋ_

 

"Guess who?" A familiar chestnut-haired, bright-eyed girl pokes her head into Twice's waiting room; for the moment the girls are all scattered about, half relaxing and half having their hair or makeup touched up.

"Somi-yah!!!" Sana and Momo squeal, stumbling to run to her. All of the girls crowd her.

"Your costume is so pretty!"

Somi spins and curtsies, showing off her candy pink pleated skirt and sporty blue crop top.

"Congratulations on your debut!"

"Thanks," Somi says, flipping her hair over her shoulder and feigning airy nonchalance before breaking into laughter, and the other girls follow. There is a lightness and happiness to Somi that is nothing short of infectious.

"I can't stay long but I wanted to say hi. Congratulations on your comeback! Twice fighting!" Somi does the fighting gesture and makes an exaggeratedly excited face.

"Somi fighting! IOI Fighting!" the girls chorus as Somi departs, wiggling her fingers in a wave and blowing kisses as she exits.

Seeing Somi debut is a joyous day. Her talents and charms made it seem as if she were born to be an idol. She’s young and has endured great trials but remains optimistic and hardworking through it all. If she can’t be a part of Twice, at least she can be given new life onstage through this project group, as the center no less. There should only be great things in store for a girl like her.

 

Tzuyu's trailing behind her group after their recording, earpieces flung carelessly over her décolleté and patting a towel to her temples to slick away sweat when she spots a familiar profile. He's facing away but Tzuyu recognizes Jun from the stature and easy manner in which he holds himself, but her chest tightens threateningly at his conversation partner.

A girl whose beauty and effervescence seems to ooze from her, her brilliant onyx hair pooling at her chest and kindness in her eyes. She recognizes the outfit as the same as Somi's earlier: IOI. She's laughing along to something Jun says and reaches up to brush his hair from his eyes. Venom surges in Tzuyu's veins; something white, hot and glowing much like anger ablaze within her.

The girl—Pinky? Maybe? She recognizes her from Produce 101 but can’t quite recall her name—catches Tzuyu’s eyes and seems to stutter near-imperceptibly before the corners of her lips pull back to reveal a magnificent white grin.

" _Anneyonghaseyo,_ I'm Jieqiong of IOI," she says melodically. Her name reveals her ethnicity but with no accent to match. Self-consciousness blooms in Tzuyu; her own Korean is far removed from perfect.

Jun turns to Tzuyu, his eyes alight with his perpetual, pervasive joy.

Tzuyu tries to calm the tempest of emotions brewing within her; she is no stranger to such things. During TV shows and interviews, she must tightly regulate both what she says and what she displays on her face. Careful is not enough for an idol these days.

“Tzuyu, this is my label-mate, Jieqiong,” Jun introduces her.

“I’m Tzuyu of Twice,” she bows.

“You must know Somi then,” Jieqiong remarks, smile still stretched wide across her face.

“I must,” Tzuyu replies, prickly. A look of dismay passes over Jieqiong’s features.

“Don’t let Tzuyu scare you, she’s fluffier once you get to know her,” Jun says reassuringly, closing his hand around Jieqiong’s forearm.

“Oh you know me, Jun. Nothing scares me,” Jieqiong says; her words are light and playful but in Tzuyu’s mind they hold a warning.

“Well, that’s good. Oh, that reminds me, now that you’ve debuted we can finally add you to the China-line group chat!”

Oh.

_Oh._

The soft tinkling of Jieqiong’s laugh, the way her eyes fixed raptly to Jun when he speaks, the effortless way she touches him by the arm, jokes with him. Something Tzuyu had thought was hers and Jun’s alone, a special and sacrosanct emblem of an unspoken _thing_ between them, was it all in her head?

Everything that had seemed so certain yet forbidden is now crumbling beneath Tzuyu. But she can’t have it, so what does it matter? 

Still, she absolutely hates how touchy Jieqiong is with Jun. But he's not hers. She doesn't see him like that, _she can't,_ she’s told herself over and over, and had finally started to crystallize and codify it until it all falls apart at the sight of them.

Tzuyu knows that if she were to have done what she wanted to in that closet a week ago then the floodgates would be thrown open, lock broken. She has to deny, deny, deny because like Eve in the garden there's no undoing that sin. 

And so she works, she plays, and distracts herself, because when she's not thinking about it she can pretend it's not real.

 

Tzuyu is at a loss for words when Twice has their first win, which is later that day, the very next day after Seventeen’s first win. Twice debuted 6 months ago: can it really be them? The achievement feels unreal, like she’s floating on a cloud, through a dream. She doesn’t cry during their speeches or during the encore performance; she abhors crying in public, always has, and broadcast is no different.

Backstage Tzuyu calls her mom, and she does cry then. Something about her mom will forever be her undoing.

_“I’m so proud of you, my little Tzuyu. It was all worth it. You are the best daughter I could’ve wished for. You always will be, no matter what you do. I will always watch over and root for you. I love you.”_

Now, she cries. Tzuyu’s in the hallway but in her mind she’s in a floaty headspace because reality doesn’t matter; all that matters is her mom’s words for her, echoing endlessly in her mind.

_I’m so proud of you._

_You are the best daughter I could’ve ever wished for._

_I love you._

Tzuyu presses end on the phone call and slumps against the wall, hiding her face behind a curtain of hair to obscure the signs of her emotions as onlookers pass.

There’s a body before her before she knows it, a familiar one at that.

“Tzuyu-yah.”

It’s familiar voice.

She’s pulled into a hug, familiar arms around her.

Jun’s thin cotton shirt is no match for her tears. She hugs him tight without thought for anything but the fact that she needs this right now. She needs the warmth and the care and something to hide behind. She needs to quiet her nervous brain that has been shunting her feelings, and her logical mind that hates tears, hates being seen as anything other that unflappable.

“I’m… s—sorry,” she says haltingly into his chest. He tilts his face into the top of her head, nose pressed into her hair.

“Don’t be,” he says, tightening his grip around her. She tilts her forehead against his shoulder, gasping for air.

On one hand they’re in the hallway, and one shouldn’t believe that the backstage areas of music shows are private. But on the other hand, there are lots of open secrets among celebrities, even just of friendships that would muddy their reputations. They all have this commonality. Now that everything’s packed up and the cameras have all turned off for the day, there’s no worrying about being caught in a backstage video, either.

The shaking in her chest subsides and Jun feels her take a low, deep breath, steeling herself and tamping down the swell of emotions in her. She pulls back, her expression wavering somewhere between stable and ready to break into tears again.

“Hey. Congratulations,” Jun smiles while pushing tears from her cheeks, and she smiles halfheartedly in return. “But you still have to put that ugly picture up,” he adds. Even though Twice’s win cuts close behind Seventeen’s, she still lost the bet. How fitting that it would end in a photo finish.

Tzuyu laughs and hits him lightly on the chest.

“Hey,” she says warningly, secretly pleased for the lighthearted topic.

“Sorry, not _ugly._ Embarrassing.”

He’ll be the death of her one of these days.

 

_Weibo—group chat_

_Minghao: CONGRATULATIONS, TZUYU_

_Tzuyu: thank youuuu ^^_

_Jieqiong: congrats! Twice fighting_

 

Early in May before the dust of their wins has time to settle, Tzuyu and Chaeyoung head to Seventeen’s dorm. The reason is somber; Wonwoo’s in the midst of a scandal and he didn’t ask—Wonwoo’s not one to do so directly—but Chaeyoung knows he wants her there. It’s a Sunday and they all have a merciful window of a few hours in which their free time overlaps.

“Where is he?” Chae asks upon entering the dorm, and is directed to Wonwoo’s hidey-hole. Wonwoo isn’t much one for words but his quietude since the scandal broke has been disconcerting for everyone.

It would seem few armchair internet detectives had taken the time to unearth some of the less-than-scrupulous actions of Wonwoo’s past: his brief stint during elementary school as an SNSD anti-fan was winning him no favors now that he himself is an idol.

Tzuyu wavers by the front door, as she’d mostly been a chaperone for Chaeyoung to come here: enough company not to cause suspicion for onlookers as to why they’d be entering a boy groups apartment building, and to allay any possible scrutiny that could eventuate from it. The current climate of both of their groups public notoriety made it so that it was ill-advised for their groups to be seen interacting alone, and to diffuse potential suspicion they’d agreed it was best to meet in groups. 

“Have you been eating?” Seungcheol asks Tzuyu once she’s settled on the couch beside him, his words a cliché expression of care but she shakes her head no to little surprise. Tzuyu had been pleased to find that the rest of the hiphop team was home; she’d expected to have to twiddle her thumbs on the couch for the better part of her time at their dorm.

A bedroom door flies open and Vernon walks out, yawning and rubbing his stomach sans shirt until he spies Tzuyu.

“Ack!” He shouts, hugging his arms around himself and scurrying back into his room. “You didn’t tell me girls were coming!” he calls to Seungcheol from his hidden vantage point beyond the threshold. Tzuyu’s flushed with embarrassment, not for seeing a guy without a shirt but for putting him in an awkward predicament.

“We didn’t know,” Seungcheol calls back through his laughter. 

Seungcheol then fetches them something to drink from the kitchen. After he pads his way back over to Tzuyu he hands her a glass and slumps back onto the couch, letting out a heavy exhale. Seungcheol looks weary, like a deflated version of himself these days. It must be a disappointing blow to have finally reached the apex of all they’d hoped to achieve only to be struck down with a scandal like this. The guilt Tzuyu’d felt about what her scandal had put Jihyo, Nayeon and Jungyeon through is fully actualized before her in this moment. But Seungcheol doesn’t realize how directly he reflects that, how could he possibly?

He has so much responsibility to shoulder and he's only a few years older than her. Back home where the lines of age distinctions are blurred, their gap would be almost negligible, but in Korea his burdens are heavier and he must feel like some of this or any situation is his fault, against all logic.

“C’mere,” Tzuyu sets her water down and waves Seungcheol closer to her. Lack of understanding colors his expression. “Turn around, and scoot closer to me.”

Seungcheol moves like his actions are set to half pace, cautious but compliant.

Tzuyu runs her hands over his back and finds a minefield of knots. It’s sad rather than shocking. Stress manifests itself in a very real way, and Seungcheol must have much more than he shows. As a leader, any problems that the company has with his group and vice versa are relayed directly through him. It must feel like he’s being given grief on all sides, to say nothing of his duties as a mediator for conflicts within the group itself, and such a big one at that.

“What are you doing?” Seungcheol asks curiously.

“Giving you a massage,” Tzuyu replies curtly, and Seungcheol hisses as she presses her fingers deep within a knot on his upper back, slowly working in circles.

“Is this… appropriate?” Seungcheol asks, his voice weak and wavering in the unique pain and relief that only extracting tension from tired muscles can bring.

“I do this for my friends all of the time. You’re my friend, right?” She replies. Because it’s hard for her to communicate on emotional topics involving complex ideas in Korean, she finds herself performing acts of service more. It’s hard to fully grasp and discuss problems her friends may be having but she can relieve their worries in this way, without speaking.

“Right,” Seungcheol replies, compliant.

“You don’t ask for it, but you deserve something like this,” she says under her breath, bracing his shoulder with one hand and pressing the heel of her other one into the spot over his shoulder blade, concentrated. “It’s okay. Relax, Seungcheol. It’ll all be okay,” Tzuyu commands gently.

She normally wouldn’t be so assertive but he’s like putty in her hands, literally. How odd it is that their roles are reversed. Normally he's a rock for her to rely on—they’re the closest, outside of her relationships with the Chinese members—but the youngest is taking care of the eldest now.

“I’m worried about everyone. Especially Wonwoo,” Seungcheol says to punctuate the long silence. He’s not much one for expressing his concerns to others, but the pain and the truth seem to want to escape his body in tandem.

“It’ll be okay. So long as he makes a proper apology, it’ll all be okay,” Tzuyu reassures him.

“How do you know?” Seungcheol asks, voice stale and flat, devoid of passion or doubt or… anything really.

“I’m intimately acquainted with the art of a proper apology,” Tzuyu explains, succinct and heavy with implication.

“Oh. You’re right,” Seungcheol replies, seeming to understand without further elaboration. 

The lock clicks and the front door swings wide before either of them have much chance to react. The performance team accompanied by two girls is just outside, home from practice, Jun with a touch of shock permeating his features at their configuration on the couch.

Seungcheol scoots away from Tzuyu as the group pours into the room.

“I didn’t know you were coming over…?” Jun trails off, addressing Tzuyu.

“You and everyone else,” Tzuyu snorts, thinking back to Vernon earlier.

Jieqiong takes a seat on the stool beside him, and Tzuyu feels paralyzed at the realization that that might be what Jun meant by it, that it meant _I wouldn’t have brought her back here if I’d known you were coming over._ Because what if he’s hiding that from Tzuyu? Not that he’d have to, but Jun’s considerate, and he _must_ know, mustn’t he? Or maybe he didn’t want Jieqiong to have to be around her. Is she second banana now? Was she always?

And to Tzuyu, the realization cements the divide between them. Jun can go on and do whatever he wants. She has no say in it; she forfeited her right to have any sort of say in who he sees or who he’s interested in weeks ago. 

Not that it matters. Not that any of it matters. It can’t, she has to remind herself over, and over again, because denying it is the only thing there is to do.

 

Later that night when a stillness takes hold of the dorm, Jun finds himself flipping over again and again, restless in his bed. There’s no practical reason why he can’t sleep. By all rights, the exhaustion should’ve set in by now like it has for the others, if their snores are any indication. He drifts in and out of consciousness, never fully able so sink down into the velvety blackness of sleep. He thinks of his mom. He thinks of his friends. He thinks of Wonwoo, and what he’s going through right now. He thinks of heavy things and stupid things and of things that don’t make sense as everything drifts together in his stubborn half-consciousness.

Eventually Jun grows tired of his inability to sleep and flings off his covers, crawling out of bed. He needs some fresh air.

He climbs the stairs to the roof and the cool air gently flutters his hair, the dregs of spring soon to be replaced by a rainy summer. In the dark he sees a familiar gaunt figure, dressed in all black with tendrils of white smoke rising above him.

“Hey,” Jun says, resting his arms on the concrete ledge that separates them from free-fall.

Wonwoo takes a drag of his cigarette, its orange embers angry and glowing in the muted dark of the city at night.

“Don’t tell Seungcheol I smoke,” Wonwoo says after a long exhale. Jun looks back at the ground and nudges the tiny mountain of butts that’s forming there.

“You think he doesn’t already know?” Jun retorts. Wonwoo gives him a look of consideration then shrugs in agreement.

“Sorry I fucked everything up,” Wonwoo says to cut the silence.

“You don’t need to apologize to me,” Jun replies. “And you didn’t. Fuck everything up, that is.”

Wonwoo taps the ash and it rains down, scattering into the air and dissipating on its stories-long descent. Jun knows that he doesn’t go out of his way to smoke much but sometimes… sometimes it just feels like the right thing for it. It definitely must right now.

“I find it kinda ridiculous. Kids do stupid stuff on the internet,” Jun says to try and be supportive.

“I shouldn’t blame it on the fact that I was a kid,” Wonwoo replies, a complicated determination in his voice.

“Well then what are you gonna say?” Jun asks, straightening up and turning to rest back against the ledge, propping himself up by his elbows.

Wonwoo pulls out a sheet of printer paper, scrawled with black ink and littered with arrows, strikethroughs and messy edits. There are two different kinds of handwriting: one is round and clear while the other is crowded and slants down with the individual characters.

“Someone helped you write it?” Jun asks, holding it up to examine.

“Yeah, Chaeyoung. Kid’s pesky. She wouldn’t leave me alone until I let her help.”

Wonwoo’s affection for her is evident in the tiny smile pulling at the corners of his mouth, contrasting his critical words. He’s glad for the nagging.

“You and Chae?” Jun asks to lighten the mood.

“Nah,” Wonwoo says flippantly, stubbing out his cigarette and flicking the end into the pile at their feet. “She’s too young. I’m more interested in Sana.”

Wonwoo laughs in disbelief at his own admission, shaking his head at the topic in the context of their current predicament. He and Jun have always had this easy rapport of honesty.

“The more you know,” Jun remarks wryly, turning his attention to the paper.

 

 _Hello, this is Wonwoo._  
_First, I want to apologize for everyone who I have hurt by this situation. Instead of making excuses by saying they were foolish mistakes I made when I was young, or saying that I don't remember what I did, I believed that admitting my faults and apologizing was the right choice, which is why I'm writing this._  
_Even though I wrote it when I was young, it is definitely something I wrote, and I am sorry to the Girls' Generation sunbaenims, their fans, as well as Carats who were hurt by this. I am also sorry to the members, who worked hard together to become Seventeen together._  
_If I think about it now, I was so immature. I thought lightly about the stars on television, and I never thought about how the words I said would hurt other people._  
_During middle school, after I became a trainee to become Seventeen, I realized the weight that the people who stand on stage have to carry. I realized how many people work hard for one person to stand on stage. After I became Seventeen and stood on stage and learned what kind of feelings people have on stage, I realized the meaning of standing on stage. I sincerely felt how amazing it was for the Girls' Generation sunbaenims to stand on stage, and respected them. I also learned how responsible I have to be in this field with the fans' love. While getting attention from the public, I learned about the effects of a single post, and how the person reading it felt. Because of this, I am even more reflecting on my actions._  
_I don't dare ask for forgiveness. I only want to reflect endlessly about my actions and apologize to the Girls' Generation sunbaenims. Even when I look back on myself, the thoughtless posts were improper, and they were actions that could have hurt someone, so I can't even raise my head because I am so sorry._  
I will work hard never to disappoint again. I will read all the criticism and advice on my immature actions and never forget them. Also, please continue to teach me. I apologize once again.  
_I am sorry._

 

“It’s good,” Jun says, handing it back. “You’re not making excuses for yourself. It’s a real man’s apology.”

“ _Namja,_ ” Wonwoo echoes with a laugh, a complicated amusement. He drops his cigarette and crushes it beneath his shoe. It joins the graveyard of remnants that all of the guys pointedly ignore.

“You should get some sleep, Wonu. Morning comes early,” Jun says, patting Wonwoo’s back.

“Same to you,” Wonwoo replies, but lets Jun lead him back to the dorm all the same.

 

_Weibo_

_Jun: sooo both of our birthdays are coming up next month_

_Tzuyu: I can’t believe they’re only a few days apart_

_Tzuyu: what are the chances?_

_Jun: right??_

_Jun: we should have a party together_

_Tzuyu: oooo good idea_

_Tzuyu: we definitely should_

_Jun: we just have to convince Seungcheol first_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was a bit experimental in terms of writing style. Let me know if it was more or less compelling than usual. Also, sorry for torturing all of my characters!
> 
> As always, the comments give me motivation to write, so any feedback (no matter how incoherent haha) is always appreciated, though I do like it when people say specifically what they liked.


	9. nine

“Okay, let’s review,” Tzuyu says, phone balanced between her ear and her shoulder. 

“Hoshi, Seungcheol, Jihyo, your manager, my manager, inviting everyone, reservations,” Jun rattles off the list.

These are the barriers that separate them from a birthday party. It’s a good thing Jun suggested it as far ahead as he did, because the more they got to talking the more layers to planning that made themselves apparent.

“I can talk to Hoshi,” Jun offers, his tinny voice coming through the phone.

“Leave Seungcheol to me,” Tzuyu replies. She’s in the midst of opening and closing drawers, pulling out items and packing her bag. Twice is headed to a province for a fansign and the car ride will be a long one. Its better to have more to keep her occupied than not enough, though everything usually gets abandoned in lieu of sleep.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. You should talk to Jihyo, though. Bring Dokyeom,” Tzuyu says, wrestling her notebook into her bag behind the rest of her things. Chaeyoung eyes her curiously from her bed where she is packing her own bag, interest piqued from the familiar names but unable to decode the conversation as she speaks only the Chinese phrases that Tzuyu’s taught her.

“ _Oh?_ ” Jun replies.

“Yeah, let him do the talking,” she replies. 

“I thought you and Jihyo were close?”

“It’s not that I think she’ll say no to me. Just… you should bring him. Trust me.”

“If you say so…” Jun replies, lost. Somehow, Tzuyu’s not surprised at his lack of observation skills.

“Then we can get our own managers,” Tzuyu says.

“Yeah. Then there’s inviting everyone and making the reservations.” Jun reminds her.

“Well that should be easy. We can deal with that later.”

 

After performance team’s choreography session wraps up, Jun gets Hoshi alone on their walk home. Night has fallen on the city, and the streets that are usually humming with life have fallen into brief quiet; streetlamps speck the alleys that they weave through on their sojourn towards a warm shower and a few hours of sleep.

"So, our birthdays are coming up soon," Jun starts when they've fallen steps behind Dino and Minghao, the latter of whom is colluding on the plan. 

"You're right," Hoshi replies with a weary smile. Come to think, Jun can't remember the last time he saw Hoshi sleep. He's relentlessly in the studio, until 2, 3, 4am, often until the previous day bleeds into a new one. Even today, leaving the studio at 1am, they’d had to jostle him into getting a precious few hours of sleep. The very thing that their fans love—their constant choreography changes and new routines—is the thing for which Hoshi feels the need to run himself into the ground. He deserves a break more than anyone, save for Woozi; the two of them are the beating heart of Seventeen, hard working to a fault, and sometimes need to be prodded into taking care of themselves first.

"We should have a birthday party," Jun says. Hoshi’s birthday falls on the days between his and Tzuyu’s and it would be too peculiar to exclude him from the guests of honor. They’ve always celebrated their birthdays together, besides, like brothers whose family gathers to celebrate two in one, and it wouldn’t feel right to abandon that tradition.

"Do you mean like a dinner? I don't see why not, since we'll be between promotions," Hoshi says, shrugging his bag up on his shoulder.

"I was thinking with the Twice girls, actually," Jun says, gathers his courage, then goes in for the kill. "Mina would be there, you know," he says conspiratorially, nudging Hoshi with his shoulder with a grin.

"Eyyyyy," Hoshi replies softly with a shy smile, as is his typical way.

"You know I'm kidding," Jun says, stretching an arm around Hoshi’s shoulders and giving him a squeeze. He's not, but it'll soften the blow enough.

"If you can get them to agree to it, sounds good."

Step one, complete.

 

 _‘Come by in 10,’_ Tzuyu reads from her phone.

Tzuyu’s in the dressing room backstage at Music Core at the moment. The other girls are sprawled out around the room: a makeup artist is painting concealer over the bruises on Momo’s legs as she still spends too much time in the studio practicing dances that belong to others; Dahyun’s having her curls touched up; Nayeon is hovering over the table of accessories, perpetually unable to decide just what exactly she’d like to wear. The room is an organized mess, full of staff and clothing and dozens of cases that are poised to be packed up at the end of the day only to be undone again the next. Tzuyu takes to tidying up the tiny corner that she’s claimed for herself, packing her bag away once more.

She dutifully waits her 10 minutes and then heads over to Seventeen’s waiting room. The hallway outside of their room is swarming with other groups and PD’s, abuzz with the noise of laughter and shouts—the general chaos that accompanies the backstage of a music show.

She knocks softly on the door, and it cracks open to reveal Joshua.

"Oh hey, Tzuyu," he replies in his accented Korean. It's always strange to hear the flattening of words in an American accent, unlike the bouncy native Korean or clipped Japanese tinge to the language she's so accustomed to. "What brings you here?"

"Uhh..."

That's a good question. 

"We invited her," Minghao cuts in, saving her from further scrutiny.

Tzuyu greets everyone and then joins Jun who has lured Seungcheol onto the couch with an offering of Choco pies. She slots herself between Seungcheol and Jun even though there's not really enough room for her. Seungcheol tries to scoot over so that their knees won't touch but it's an exercise in futility, and he resigns himself to the closeness when he sees that Tzuyu’s not fussed by it.

"Hi Seungcheol-oppa," Tzuyu giving him a winning smile and tipping her head onto his shoulder. Seungcheol observes her in cautious amusement.

"Why are you doing aegyo at me?" Seungcheol asks outright.

"I just missed you! Can't I do aegyo at my oppa?" she asks, framing her face with her hands.

Seungcheol snorts, choking on his Choco pie. He coughs for a moment until he can finally get his hands on some water, and takes a sip to quell his coughing.

"Okay, who are you and where is Tzuyu?" He says.

"Well I..." Tzuyu rests her hand on Jun's forearm, "we have something to ask you."

Seungcheol’s expression reads as somewhere between amused and terrified.

"Go on," Seungcheol says cautiously, suspicion and curiosity lacing his voice.

"Jun, Hoshi and I were thinking, since our birthdays are all so close we should have a dinner together. To celebrate with both of our teams."

Seungcheol is visibly relieved. 

"And we were hoping that that was okay with you," Jun adds on.

"Yeah, that's fine. I mean so long as you guys can figure out the logistics, like transportation and reservations and so on."

"Perfect," Jun replies, high fiving both Hoshi and Tzuyu. The bait and switch plan had gone off without a hitch.

The door clicks open and a familiar head pokes in the door.

"Hey guys," Jieqiong says, showing her brilliant white smile. She extends the door to step in and Nayoung follows behind.

"Hey!" Jun pops up and heads over to greet them. There's a feeling akin to a knife twisting into Tzuyu's side, but she smiles to mask it.

Seungcheol asks her a question but she's so busy being _totally normal, totally fine_ that she doesn't actually hear it.

"Tzuyu?" He asks to catch her attention.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I zoned out for a moment. What's up?"

Seungcheol’s followed her line of vision from a moment ago and quirks his eyebrow in amusement but stays mum. She appreciates the mercy.

"I asked where you were thinking of having the birthday party?"

“We hadn’t really gotten that far yet,” Tzuyu replies, trying to focus on Seungcheol but failing as her gaze flicks to Jun and Jieqiong and then back again.

“True. You still have… what? A little under 3 weeks? I’m sure you’ll be able to find somewhere.,” Seungcheol says.

It’s then that Jieqiong slots in next to Tzuyu on the couch, oblique and brazen in her friendliness.

“Congratulations again on your wins!” Zieqiong gushes. “It's amazing! Twice is really the best.”

As terse as Tzuyu wants to be, she knows it's unwarranted and far from appropriate, and she can't help but to soften at Jieqiong’s unbridled enthusiasm towards her.

“Thank you, that’s very nice of you to say,” Tzuyu says with a little nod of acknowledgement. Jieqiong beams. _Does this girl ever stop smiling?_ Tzuyu wonders. She doesn’t care to admit it, but she can feel herself thawing just the slightest bit.

 

_Weibo_

_Tzuyu: status on Jihyo?_

_Jun: it was so weird_

_Jun: they went all googly eyed and then Jihyo said yes right away_

_Tzuyu: yay!!_

_Jun: how did you know I should bring Dokyeom?_

_Tzuyu: how did you not know…?_

_Jun: LOL_

_Jun: so I was thinking, we should invite the IOI girls from our companies_

_Jun: Somi, Jieqiong, Nayoung_

_Tzuyu: oh_

_Tzuyu: okay_

_Jun: is that not okay?_

_Tzuyu: why wouldn’t it be?_

 

“Your alright, Tzuyu?” Chaeyoung asks. Tzuyu tears her eyes from her phone and looks over to Chaeyoung’s bunk. They’re home for the night, each of them showered and ready for bed; Dahyun’s listening to music on her bunk above them. Chaeyoung had been cross-legged, hunched over a drawing, but now she’s placed her pencils flat, giving Tzuyu her attention. “You’re expression is a bit… sour.”

“I’m fine. Just talking to Jun about our birthday thing,” Tzuyu replies to diffuse Chaeyoung’s concerns. Chaeyoung nods in understanding.

“Oh yeah, how’s the planning for that going?” Chaeyoung asks, returning her attention to her drawing, shading in one of the characters.

“Everyone has said yes, so we just need to notify our managers and make reservations,” Tzuyu explains.

“And…?”

“And what?”

Chaeyoung’s eyes flick up from her drawing.

“You were just scowling at your phone. There’s an _and.”_

Tzuyu pauses a moment, ruminating on how exactly to properly explain her situation.

“Well, Jun thinks we should invite the IOI girls from our companies,” she settles on. It’s vague enough.

“Somi, Nayoung and Jieqing, right?” Chaeyoung affirms, switching out pencils for another color.

“Yeah,” Tzuyu replies, trying to keep her voice free of the deflated way that she feels.

“Do you hate Jieqiong or something?” Chaeyoung asks without ceremony, continuing to work on her drawing as though she’d asked Tzuyu something simple like what she was thinking of having for breakfast.

“Why would you ask that?” Tzuyu replies sharply. Chaeyoung side-eyes her skeptically.

“Well according to Mingyu, Minghao said you seem kinda hostile.” Chaeyoung says.

Tzuyu makes a mental note to show Minghao hostile.

“You're talking to Mingyu about me?” Tzuyu sulks, slumping back against her pillows.

“He asked! And I'm curious,” Chaeyoung replies.

Tzuyu likes Jieqiong. She does. Still, she rues the day Jieqiong was added to the group chat. Tzuyu didn’t realize how much she liked being doted upon as the only girl between her two friends until she wasn’t special anymore. Tzuyu is loath to realize how used to being the center of attention she's gotten, in every respect. She's so used to fending off attention that it feels like there's this void now, which has never before existed. She knows it’s irrational but it feels like she’s been dethroned, doubly so because Jieqiong has been friends with Jun and Minghao for years, and without her even knowing it. If anything, Tzuyu’s the foreigner. She thought she’d found one safe place where that wasn’t the case, but it’s not so.

Though, one of the biggest reasons she dislikes Jieqiong’s presence, as irrational as it may be, is because the realizations that refract off of her all highlight her less-than-commendable tendencies, and threaten Tzuyu’s own self-perception as an upright, well-meaning person.

And the Jun aspect. Tzuyu’s torn on whether she wants him to set his sights on someone else or not—that is to assume that he ever set his sights on her in the first place—but Jieqiong places her in that uncomfortable limbo of contemplation with an uncertain but inevitable expiration date, and the lack of certainty about what she even wants from or for him gnaws on her nerves. She’s forced to contemplate the thought that she’s been selfish, again, for enjoying the attention that he gives her without wanting to make anything of it.

Rationally, she knows it’s not Jieqiong’s fault that all of these painful realizations are rising to the surface. And even if Jieqiong and Jun are interested in one another, she can’t be mad at that either. She made her own bed, and now she has to lie in it. He’s neither her property nor her keeper.

 

Throughout the month of May, Twice has their first win and it seems to snowball from there. It’s astounding to watch the table in the corner of their living room become cluttered with trophies; it’s so surreal that it’s almost numbing.

The lack of sleep somehow makes the days whiz by at a quicker pace than usual. It’s delirium that Jun floats through day in and day out, as they wake up, get primped, dress up, perform, meet fans, record, rehearse, sleep an hour or two, and then repeat, for weeks on end.

The birthday party gives them something to look forward to other than work. As much as being an idol was his dream and is gratifying, it’s still his job. Like Ryeowook said, he has to keep parts of his life separate from that. This distraction is too fitting.

From time to time Seventeen and Twice are able to spend little pockets of time with one another. Seungcheol all but forces Tzuyu and Chaeyoung to talk to Dino because _‘You’re the same-age, how have you barely spoken to one another?’._ Dino is nice enough (if a little excessively confident) but Tzuyu finds that Vernon is more welcoming, and quite gracious about their awkward encounter a few weeks back. It’s strange though, she finds that Chaeyoung is exceptionally quiet around him. She makes a mental note to ask her about it later but it gets lost in her exhaustion-addled brain.

 

“And then you grab here, and thrust your hips like this."

"Can we… do this…? Onstage?" Joshua asks, concerned about the choreography, while the rest of the guys crack up at his reticence. The irony that the American of the group would be the most conservative.

It's the first few days of June, and the choreographer and Hoshi are in the midst of teaching the other Seventeen guys the choreography for their next promotional song, Very Nice. The guys are all dressed in slouchy workout clothes and in a mirror-lined room, the floor in front scattered with papers full of choreography notes and littered with water bottles; the room is heady and hot from thirteen boys worth of exertion.

They run through the same section of choreography, the chorus, a number of times, trying for now just to cement the choreography in their brains. It’s the evening after one of their music show performances, and with their tight comeback schedule—only a month between their goodbye stages and new promotions—so the time is nigh to be working on their routine, already. The song is finished and all that’s left is for Woozi to fine-tune the recording, and they’re at the final stretch of learning and perfecting the routine.

"Alright guys, one more run through and then we'll break," the choreographer says, hand poised on the mouse ready to play the music again.

The choreography this time is hard-hitting and dynamic—verging on exhausting—and they’re all sure it’ll be a hit. The room had been filled with whoops of approval the first time that Hoshi and their choreographer had shown the guys the full choreography. Still, it sucks the life out of them all much faster than any other routine has so far.

After their run through Jun flings himself into the floor, grasping for his water bottle once his breathing calms.

"Wonwoo, you alright?" Hoshi asks. Wonwoo's standing in the center still, doubled over with elbows on knees 

"I'm fine," Wonwoo says in a thin voice before straightening up, his face screwed up. He takes a step forward.

Then he hits the floor.

 

The guys all wait nervously and try to focus on practicing the dance (with limited success) until the choreographer returns and dismisses them for the day. Seungcheol and Mingyu left with Wonwoo to the hospital so they’re three people short, and regardless of Wonwoo’s exact condition their choreographer instructs them to head home and get some much-needed rest lest any of the rest of them fall prey to it.

Minghao slings an arm over Jun's shoulder on the walk home.

"I'm sure he'll be fine," Minghao says in response to Jun's worried expression. Jun wants to believe it, but he can’t quite fit the idea in with his sense of logic enough to do so.

The mood in the dorm is tense, too tense. There’s no strained conversations but it’s just that: there’s no conversations. The guys are all resilient and put on brave faces for the camera but sometimes the only thing there is to do is stop sprinting and accept how worn down they are.

After a shower Jun throws on a pair of slouchy pajamas and makes his way back to common area and finds Joshua finger-picking his guitar in the darkened living room, the light of the kitchen spilling in. He’s softly singing a song in English that sounds suspiciously like a hymn, but it’s soothing. They could all use a prayer in this moment.

Outside rain breaks. The tipping point of June also marks the start of the rainy season, a summer in which torrents will scourge the city and the reprieve will come later in the form of further sweltering days of summer.

A few of the guys are already in the living room but the rest seem to migrate there one by one, fitting their bodies beside one another on the blanket-covered floor like a pile of dozing puppies. There is this unspoken thing between them all, this worry for Wonwoo and their team, and an appreciation for the good times and state of reflection that it forces upon all of them.

Seungcheol and Mingyu tumble gracelessly in the front door, disrupting the meditative, trance-like quietude of the soft guitar and steady thrum of rain.

“Wonwoo’s sick, but he’ll be okay,” Seungcheol says, tossing his bag onto a chair and mussing his face and hair in relief of close-cut stress.

Jeonghan extends an arm to him, and Seungcheol sidles up to him, Mingyu to Minghao, and the night presses on, fading into a tomorrow with more hope for them all. But now, sleep.

 

Tzuyu’s on the way to a CF shoot when her phone buzzes adamantly. Jihyo’s name adorned with several emojis lights up her screen.

“Hello?” Tzuyu answers, gaze shifting to the passing scenery outside of the car. Concrete and specks of green whiz by as they make their way along the highway, flanked by other cars. Tzuyu’s in the van alone today, headed to a solo CF shoot.

“Tzuyu-yah, I have some bad news,” Jihyo’s somber voice comes through the phone.

“What?” Tzuyu asks, straightening up. Dozens of half-formed terrible ideas pass through her mind but she doesn’t have time to settle on one before Jihyo continues.

“It’s Jungyeon-unnie. She got hurt while filming ‘Law of the Jungle’…” Jihyo trails off, regaling her with the details of Jungyeon’s predicament. Jungyeon’s flying back from Central America to Seoul for treatment over the next few days; she’s hurt her leg, it seems. They’ll have to conduct extra practices tonight to alter their formations and Jungyeon will be out for who knows how long. Tzuyu can only hope that the injury isn’t severe, and that she’ll heal quickly.

It all seems like bad omens, first Wonwoo falling ill and then Jungyeon getting injured. After the phone call she whips opens Weibo; they’re approaching their destination soon and she’s not sure when her next chance to use her phone will be if not now.

_Weibo_

_Tzuyu: I just got word that Jungyeon’s injured_

_Tzuyu: do you think maybe in light of all of this chaos we should cancel the party?_

_Jun: oh no :o_

_Jun: I don’t think we should_

_Jun: it gives everyone something to look forward to_

_Tzuyu: if you say so_

 

"Dear coordis, please come help me pick out an outfit," Nayeon says wistfully to no one in particular as she throws yet another shirt onto the mountain of rejected clothes on her bed. Tzuyu and Sana are perched nearby on Jihyo's bed, taking selcas as they wait for the rest of the girls to get ready.  
"Nayeon, you'll look the same in anything," Tzuyu says, eliciting a glare from Nayeon.

"Jjang," Jihyo says once she's shuffled into her shoes, showing off her finished outfit.

"So pretty," Sana gives her a look of approval and Tzuyu shows thumbs up.

"Okay, okay, I got it," Nayeon says with determination, pulling a dress off of a hanger and slipping it on.

“Nayeon, who are you trying to impress?” Jihyo teases, zipping Nayeon’s dress for her as she holds her hair aside.

“I should ask you the same question,” Nayeon fires back facetiously, turning around and smoothing her dress down. Jihyo gives her a critical look but doesn’t protest. “What do you all think?”

“You look so good!” Sana chimes in, hopping up from the bed.

“Now let’s get going,” Tzuyu says, hand wavering above the doorknob. Nayeon merely fixes her with a reproachful look.

“I need accessories though.”

 

The guys arrive first to the birthday party. There’s a long table stretched across the common area of the restaurant, which is empty save for Auntie Mei bustling around. All of the blinds to the storefront are drawn and the lighting is dim; along with all of the wood and decorations the inside of the store is cozy and inviting.

“Hello, my dears,” Auntie Mei says, clapping her hands together in delight as she approaches them. The rest of the group members all bow, greeting her politely and she bestows them with a kind, toothy smile and introduces herself and makes conversation in broken but functional Korean.

The IOI girls arrive next, and greet everyone, and though Somi knows everyone the least, she spares no time sidling up to the younger members.

It’s 10pm already when the Twice girls arrive at the restaurant; it’s nearly half an hour after the boys got there, enough time to order drinks and make themselves comfortable. The all exchange greetings and sit back down, and the food comes out steadily afterward. Tzuyu sits near Jun and Minghao, but clings to them less than usual. Jieqiong’s beside her and the two take their time catching up and chat with Somi and Chaeyoung across from them. Jieqiong doesn’t bite, and Tzuyu has resolved to be friendlier towards her.

Everyone laughs and converses over dinner, the room abuzz and full to the brim with 23 people, and Tzuyu notices with some chagrin that many of the members of either group are drinking, though she can’t. If she were at home in Taiwan she would be, and she’s not angered so much as she’s irritated by the mere principle of it.

After dinner everyone disperses to various spots in the restaurant to dance, talk, sing at the karaoke machine that auntie rented that’s placed in the back area. Tzuyu and Minghao make their way out to the back patio for some fresh air.

The back area is small but quaint, a wooden deck up a flight of stairs from the restaurant below it. There’s a small fountain in the center and potted plants dot the area; white fairy lights are strung up around the perimeter of the patio.

“I didn’t even know that this existed,” Tzuyu murmurs to herself behind Minghao.

“Auntie likes to keep it as an open secret,” Minghao says, an affectionate half smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he hops up on the wooden railing that borders the deck.

“I’m 18 now,” she says to Minghao, leaning back on her elbows on the railing. “17, really,” she says in Mandarin. She’s barely even conscious of the switch. “It’s annoying that everyone can drink without me though,” She remarks. It’s not entirely true. She, Chaeyoung, Somi, Dino, Vernon and Seungkwan are all left in the dust. Still, it’s less than a third of the group.

Minghao glances over to the stairs before he speaks.

“But can they?” Minghao says, pulling a flask out from his jacket. Tzuyu gapes at him, open-mouthed. He waves it more adamantly it towards her. 

“Happy birthday,” he says sincerely. She hesitates. “Well, if you’re not gonna drink from it,” he says, and makes a move to stash it back away. She catches his hand, prying the flask out of it.

“No,” she says, unscrewing it, eyes fixed on the stairs in case anyone comes up. “I am.”

She takes a swig of it and it burns but it goes down easy.

“Look at you, Tzuyu, a pro already,” Minghao tutts approvingly.

“You shouldn’t have expected any less,” Tzuyu says with another gulp, not caring if she seems unladylike. It’s Minghao, after all.

There’s the click of shoes on the stairs, and before Tzuyu can see who it is she hastily screws the flask shut and shoves it inside the back pocket of her shorts as she turns around.

“Seungcheol-oppa!” She greets him with a wide smile. Either the details around everything are softer now, or she’s imagining things.

 

Minghao gets his flask back an hour later.

“Sorry, I had a bit more,” Tzuyu murmurs, passing it to him.

“Silly Zhou, it was all for you.” He says, pushing it back into her hand.

“No, I think half was enough,” she says, tucking it back inside his pocket, “I feel nice.” She’s all smiles, a warmth extending from her middle through her fingertips. “Thank you though, Minghao. For thinking of me,” she says, rubbing his back affectionately.

“Always, Zhou.”

 

Jun sees Tzuyu smiling and laughing with Minghao across the restaurant and he knows, _he knows_ that neither of them mean anything by it, but it doesn’t stop some volatile emotion from flaring up inside of him. He’s sitting with Hoshi and Mina at the moment—he initiated a conversation between them but both seem to be talking well enough without him—and he finds a moment to extract himself from the conversation. He excuses himself and the pair waves him away, continuing to talk.

Tzuyu begins to make he way through the crowd, accepting birthday greetings as she goes, until she is confronted with Jun standing before her.

“Come with me,” he murmurs into her ear, his fingers grazing the back of her arm as he does. Delight and fear intermingle within her but she follows, allowing him to lead her by the arm. Instead of the door to the deck they pass through a door marked ‘employees only’, up the back stair past the entrance to Auntie Mei’s apartment and up another two flights.

“Where are we going?” she asks, trying to conceal her labored breathing. As much as she dances, she seems to be forever bested by stairs.

“You’ll see,” Jun replies evasively, opening a door. A wall of summer air greets her, and she has little time to process it as she follows him outside. There’s a ladder affixed to the side of the building; he lets go of her and begins to climb. Jun turns to look at Tzuyu gape at him when he’s about halfway up. “Well?”

She steels herself, not one to back down from a challenge, and begins to climb too. It might be the little bit of alcohol that’s giving her courage right now, but she makes it to the top, though she does let Jun help her from the ladder to the roof.

“How did you know about this?” she asks, crawling across the roof behind him.

“I’m better friends with Auntie than you’d think,” he replies cryptically.

They both settle beside one another, knees drawn up to accommodate the slant of the roof. From where they’re seated they can both clearly see the deck a few stories below, and figures that they can make out to be Nayeon and Seungcheol. They know they shouldn’t be _too_ loud lest they draw attention to themselves.

The moon is silver in the sky, nearly full, and the air is thick and soupy with humidity. Tzuyu pulls off her long-sleeved shirt to reveal her tank top beneath, her dark blue-black hair pouring out and fanning out over her shoulders as she does so. Jun curtails his gaping just moments before she glances over at him; perfect timing.

“So, we’re really alone up here?” Tzuyu remarks, sitting back and resting her weight against her palms.

“We are. What a novel thought,” Jun laughs shortly, quietly to himself.

“So you’re going on tour soon?” Tzuyu asks.

“Yeah. We have a comeback first though,” Jun says.

“Christ, do you all _ever_ take a break?”

“Well, we can’t all be Twice-level popular.”

“Don’t say that,” Tzuyu replies modestly. Their popularity is a good thing, but when it’s just the two of them it feels like allowing the rest of the world into this moment that ought to be theirs alone.

“It’s true,” he replies, his voice free of any misgivings.

“Well, we’re not the one having concerts across Asia. I’m interested to see what you’ll being me back from your travels,” Tzuyu remarks.

“Who says I’m bring you souvenirs?” Jun asks in incredulity.

“You will,” she replies in calm assurance, tipping her head to the side. Her smirk is infectious, and he tilts his head forward to prevent her from seeing the one that sprawls across his face.

They slip into a tranquil silence, she fussing over him just long enough to tuck in the tag that’s poking out the back of his shirt. Her fingers skate over his skin as she does, likely with little thought to significance on her part, but a flower of delight blooms in him. He is hopeless against her, already dragged under and drowning in her sights.

“What a year it’s been,” Jun remarks to break their reverie.

“The most eventful of my life, I’d say,” Tzuyu replies. The events of both their years scroll in snapshots through their mind: _debut, performances, fansigns, award shows, comebacks, first wins, scandals._

“Do you ever wonder what your life would be like if not for this?” Jun asks.

“I don’t want to. As demanding and draining as it can be, I wouldn’t want anything else,” Tzuyu replies.

“I feel the same. But I do wonder. It feels like my life has been set on this trajectory before I was ever old enough to even have a thought of what I wanted for myself. What would I have been otherwise?” Jun asks rhetorically. It’s true; he was scouted at the age of 2 and has been in the entertainment industry ever since. With every year gone by, doing anything else felt more and more like an impassable wall.

“Well, you wouldn’t have won any music shows, that’s for sure,” Tzuyu quips back lightly.

“True. Oh, that reminds me…” he says, completing his sentence instead with action, plucking her phone from her hand.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Tzuyu asks, clambering over him to get it back.

“You’ve been avoiding this for too long. I need that embarrassing picture,” Jun says, holding Tzuyu back with one hand with her phone extended in the other.

“You’re playing dirty!” she replies, trying to retrieve it but failing from her vantage point. So, she does the only thing she can to debilitate him: she tickles him.

“I’m playing dirty?” Jun says scathingly through his laughter. She puts on a determined face and wrestles him for the phone. “So you want to go there?”

He slips her phone in his pocket and retaliates mercilessly. His strength is greater than hers and he easily overpowers her, catching her wrist in his hand and then both, holding them down above her head with one hand and torturing her with the other.

“Mercy—mercy!” she chokes out between laughs, and Jun grants her, letting go and ceasing the torture so that they can both catch their breath. 

After a long moment they both seem to realize their predicament, him above her, legs interwoven, inches between them as he props himself up with arms on either side of her. Her tongue flicks between her lips, which are suddenly all too dry, his eyes flitting down to them and then back up to hers. He looks at her with something soft and sublime and _worried_ in his eyes. It feels like the moment is suspended in time; they are standing on the edge of a chasm, wavering uncertainly in what could be and what shouldn’t.

And then… and then.

They are in free fall. He’s kissing her, and his lips are a salve, an absolution, a revelation. They’re softer than she’d thought they’d be.

Her heart is violet, wanton and daydreaming. Her hands lace through his hair of their own volition, and one of his holds her delicately by the waist. Both hold firm for fear that the other will vanish in smoke.

She kisses him like she means it, like someone who has done this before. There’s little space in his brain to wonder who it might’ve been. There are only stars swimming in the blackness of his closed eyes, the vague taste of something cherry, and rising water within him.

There has been too much waiting and not enough of this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will write 4 comments. Sorry this took so long. Writing was a bit of a nightmare. Plagued by indecision. The party scene was one of the first ones I ever wrote for this story back before I ever even posted it and, long story short, I ended up having to almost completely re-write that.
> 
> Did anybody else see Jihyo and DK’s [duet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s68K_MtpED4) on King of Masked Singer? They covered Dream by Suzy & Baekhyun and it was perf. Maybe I’ll have to get around to actually writing that one day…
> 
> I now have a [tumblr](rgywrites.tumblr.com) where I take requests and update stuff if you care about updates or requests.


	10. ten

It’s long. Too long. Long enough that it’s definitely not an accident anymore. The rooftop is silent aside from the break of their breath, the whir of far off traffic and and the hum of cicadas.

Then Tzuyu’s ringtone cuts through the ambient noise.

“Ignore it,” Jun murmurs, a request, placing firefly kisses beneath her ear in a place she never knew lips could feel so splendid.

“I shouldn’t,” Tzuyu replies. He tugs her earlobe between his teeth and she just about turns into a puddle of agreement before he pulls back. He hands her the phone that he’d confiscated earlier and it’s Jihyo’s name lighting up the screen. A fearful weight pulls down on Tzuyu.

“Hey Jihyo,” she replies, making pointed eye contact with Jun above her, who moves to sit up, allowing her to do the same.

“Hey, where did you go?” Jun can hear Jihyo’s tiny voice coming through the phone.

“Uhh, nowhere important, what’s up?” Tzuyu says.

“Well, when you’re done being nowhere important, you should come back to the party. Everyone’s having a lot of fun!” Jihyo says, speaking loudly over the thud of music. The tension Tzuyu’s holding visibly gives.

“Alright. I’ll be there soon,” Tzuyu replies, ending the call.

She gives Jun a look of resignation.

“We gotta go?” he asks.

“We gotta go,” she echoes in confirmation.

 

Self-disciplined is Tzuyu’s nature but she allows herself to tangle in the darkened hallways with Jun several times on their descent, each time messier and less graceful than the last, both giggly from the sneaky silliness of the situation. It’s still heart wrenching in its sweetness.

Because in the back of Tzuyu’s mind there is this thing that she still cannot allow herself to admit. She realizes that some nights are meant to remain pockets of time with funhouse logic and actions that mismatch the intentions of a new day. And so she'll indulge it for now, while they're on this plane of irreality, without too much consideration for whether she's indulging Jun or herself.

They pause behind the _‘employees only’_ door, and Tzuyu turns to Jun, who weaves his fingers through hers; happiness pulls at the corners of his lips and he draws his gaze up from the sight of their interlaced fingers to meet her eyes.

“Our secret, okay?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he replies, voice quiet.

She leans back against the wall and tugs her hands from his, and him forward into her at the same time, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and kissing him, lingering and indulgent, one last time. Jun feels like she’s trying to communicate something with it, but he’s not exactly sure what.

“Okay,” she says, tilting her forehead to his, resolving herself to go but unwilling to articulate it.

“Okay,” he replies, acquiescing with his words but capturing her mouth once more. There’s something too rapturous and jubilant to be denied in this forbidden, condemnable moment. Jun knows she feels it too, if her compliance is any indication.

“Okay, _okay,”_ she murmurs more hurriedly this time, pressing her fingertips to his collarbones so that he’ll back away.

She’s got more self-control than he does by miles, that’s for sure.

 

Tzuyu walks out first and finds Jihyo singing a trot song with Dokyeom at the karaoke machine, some of the partygoers crowded around the area laughing and dancing in the glow of the colored, flashing lights. There’s another bunch of people at one end of the table playing some sort of game involving cards and lots of table-slapping, drinks sloshing out and laugher erupting from them as she crosses the room. The sight makes her grateful for the drawn blinds of the storefront.

She makes an immediate beeline for Minghao, pulling him to the back of the karaoke crowd by the wrist.

“Hey, so you know when you said earlier that that _thing_ was all for me?” she says, speaking in code; though it’s in Mandarin, Jieqiong is here and Tzuyu doesn’t trust her well enough for her to know what she’s up to, not by a long shot.

“Yeah?” he replies, interest piqued.

“Well, can I have it, actually?” she replies, low and hurried.

Minghao bestows her with a look of confusion but pulls it discreetly out all the same, handing it to Tzuyu behind her back and out of sight of the others.

“Thanks, Minghao,” Tzuyu replies and he gives her a nod in response, slipping away back into the crowd to not draw attention to their conversation. Tzuyu’s glad for a taciturn friend at a time like this.

She makes her way to the bathroom, nicking a can of coke on her way. Once alone she unscrews the flask, pouring the contents of it down her throat, though she wants to gag and spit it out.

Because she needs a reason, a justification, a buffer between her thoughts and reality. She wants to crowd out the corners of her mind screaming at her that none of this is okay.

 

“Hey,” Chaeyoung says to Tzuyu once she exits the bathroom, linking an arm through hers and steering her towards an open booth. “You won’t believe what happened. Momo decided to dance on a table and fell off into the waiting arms of one Kim Mingyu. He was red in the face for about a hundred years after; it was the best.”

“Jeez, you guys have been getting into some crazy hijinks,” Tzuyu says, glancing over to find the pair who are on opposite sides of the room.

“Speaking of, where did you go?” Chaeyoung asks.

“You know, here and there,” Tzuyu replies evasively. Chaeyoung quirks an eyebrow at her but doesn’t press the issue further. For a second time tonight, Tzuyu’s thankful for a friend that doesn’t pry.

 

Later in the night when the party has died down a bit, Jun finds Minghao sitting stoically with a half-empty glass in front of him, Mingyu snuggled against his shoulder, possibly sleeping. With Wonwoo home sick, Mingyu has been a barnacle to Minghao as of late.

“Sup,” Minghao says when Jun sits across from him.

“What’s with Gyu?” Jun asks.

“He still thinks he can drink as much as I can,” Minghao says, shaking his head in disapproval and pity.

“Poor thing. He’ll learn one day,” Jun says with an empathetic nod. For his part, Minghao looks perfectly composed, if a little disheveled from the night’s events and the fact that he isn’t hairsprayed into oblivion as they usually are during the day.

“So, you and Tzuyu?” Minghao asks casually.

“What about me and Tzuyu?” Jun replies airily, his hackles rising in suspicion. How the hell does Minghao _always_ seem to know? 

“Nothing,” Minghao says, quirking an eyebrow and taking a sip of his drink that seems to imply that it’s definitely, absolutely the opposite of nothing.

Jun doesn’t press it, though. As much as they’re having a conversation between friends, the stakes of the situation are still too towering for anything resembling a public area.

 

Later that night, after the party has wound down and the girls have made it back to the dorm and they’re all cozied up in their beds, the adrenaline settles and leaves heavy panic behind; a weight in Tzuyu’s stomach settles like dread. What did she do?

What did she do?

_What did she do?_

Oh god.

 

_Weibo_

_Jun, 16 June, 5:17pm: hey are you free any time this week?_

_Jun, 17 June, 9:21pm: ?_

_Jun, 18 June, 1:08pm: guess not_

_-18 June, 8:40pm: missed call, Jun-_

_Jun, 19 June, 1:33pm: call me when you get a chance_

_Jun, 20 June, 12:09pm: are you ok?_

 

Jun’s busy and no doubt that Tzuyu is too—she’s everywhere these days: street advertisements, commercials, variety shows—and it makes for an easy excuse of why they can’t see one another. He knows that variety filming can take all day—often ten hours for a one-hour show—to say nothing of CF filming and photo shoots.

 _It’s fine, she’s probably just at a schedule. She’s busy these days. Maybe she saw it and forgot to reply,_ he tells himself time and time again. He tries to push down the niggling seed of doubt that’s sprouted within him but it serves only to plant it further.

He resorts to asking Mingyu to ask Chaeyoung if something is up with her, but all reports turn up clean: _‘she seems fine, is getting on with her life as per usual, and why do you want to know?’_ But it’s all filtered through Mingyu and Jun can’t exactly tell him or Chaeyoung why, so that’s all he’ll get for now.

Jun bears in mind what Seungcheol said to him months ago, to think of the team and not let problems affect his work in a destructive way. He owes it to them to show the same commitment as everyone else. When they’re practicing he turns his phone off, full stop, and doesn’t check it until they’re done for the day. He knows that staring at their messages and willing a new response to appear is just shy of crazy, and tries not to indulge it.

The days move by at a fast clip, in spite of it. Days in the Pledis building stretch on without any signs of shortening. Hours go by in the practice room, filled with rehearsals for the fast-approaching KCON in New York, sessions to learn new routines for their concerts next month, and rehearsals to clean their next promotional routine that they’ll be performing in only a few weeks time. It’s all punctuated by recording sessions, filming v-apps, and breaks for meals. Though he and the other Seventeen guys (minus Wonwoo, for now) are worked to the bone, since they’re between promotional periods they actually have time to sleep for once. Jun’s worrying gives way to exhaustion, night after night, until it’s time to head to New York and he hasn’t heard a peep from Tzuyu in a week.

 

Tzuyu’s spent the last week idling in indecision, indefinitely. She knows that now, she has to make a choice. Before, she could fret without end over what she wants but she can’t face him now. She holds too much power in her hands and is overwhelmed by how to wield it.

She thinks of Krystal, Sulli, Suzy, IU, Taeyeon, Tiffany… the list of female idols who have had their careers tarnished and stunted by dating scandals is staggering. The stakes are high, for her, for her group. It’s sickening to think of the way that her market value will go down if she’s seen as impure, and terrifying to think of the threats that would emerge from the fandom of another popular group, as Jun’s is quickly becoming. And then, this would all impact her group, directly and indirectly both. She’d already razed Twice’s hopes of success in China to the ground, and to do so further would be career suicide, for herself and the rest of the group members that she loves and cares for. How could she possibly subject others to that?

But the selfish part in her, the id to her superego, wants him in a way that’s blinding. Pandora’s box is open, and how can she shove it all back in?

Short answer: she can’t.

 

Jun jerks forward in his seat as the plane touches down, the wheels jolting on impact as the rushing crescendo of airplane brakes accompanies the pull of rapid deceleration. JFK airport looms in the distance, crowned with far-off skyscrapers, fog and pollution adding a hazy filter over the buildings that soar into the sky.

“New York,” he hears Seungcheol mumble jubilantly, his voice thick with sleep, as he joins the waking world.

“We’re visiting the Statue of Liberty, right?”

“If we have time, Dino-yah,” Jeonghan replies affectionately.

It’s the third week of June, and Seventeen is in New York for KCON. Jun has resolved to enjoy himself, because otherwise what’s the damn point? He won’t let Tzuyu’s silence ruin things for him. He’s in the US, with his group members who are always a tremendous fun, so he may as well make the most of the trip.

The next few days are spent in rehearsals, with intermittent free time to explore the city. The mix of people of different colors and races, many with loud dispositions, is utterly jarring to them all. Joshua and Vernon herd them, like little sheep, through the wending streets and alleys of the cities, communicating effortlessly in a foreign tongue while Jun can only pick out words here or there that he understands. This must be what it felt like all those months ago, when he’d led them confidently through the bustling streets of Hong Kong. Being on the helpless end is disarming.

 

The music starts, vibrating thick and heavy through the air. A tiny version of it plays through Jun’s earpiece; the thunder of the music from the industrial sound system and the clamor of the crowd renders the music coming from the speakers indistinguishable.

He waits at his mark for his cue. Counts the music in his head.

5\. 6. 7. 8.

Go.

And then he is onstage. There’s only blinding, flashing lights, his members beside him, and the roar of the crowd, dark and soaring up into the sky, the top edges of the stadium made visible only by the pervasive glow of the city on the skyline. This is KCON.

 

“Damn, what a rush,” Hoshi says, pulling his tie loose as they pour into their dressing room, dabbing at his face with a towel to clear off 20 minutes’ worth of sweat. The time onstage is objectively short, but minutes before an enormous crowd distort themselves, stretching impossibly long into the distance while simultaneously disappearing in a snap.

Just like that, their purpose for being in New York is over.

“Americans’ reactions are amazing,” Mingyu says in awe, already changing out of his stage outfit.

Everyone is amped, on edge, a high that only performing for such a massive, effusive crowd can bring. Jun’s still drunk off of the response from the audience, adrenaline and endorphins marrying to create a cloudy buoy of elation.

This right here, this feeling, is how he knows that he would never want anything else.

 

“Something’s been up with you lately, Jun,” Woozi says, glancing up from his notebook. They’re in their hotel room, spending their last few hours in the US locked indoors while the nighttime city hums on the other side of the wall. On long trips, Woozi abandons his production software and writes, just _writes,_ songs that’ll never see the light of day because mournful doesn’t sell. His soul is old and tired, and if Jun could ever fully get his mind around reincarnation, Woozi would be the first one he’d believe to have lived a hundred lives, for his depth of thought and feeling that transitions effortlessly into levity.

Woozi is used to exhaustions, and the many permutations it manifests in, so he never says much. Though the one time Jun would hope for him not to ask questions would, of course, be the one time he asked.

“Does it seem like that?” Jun replies as he pulls off his shoes, feeling the situation out.

“No. It’s not obvious, at least,” Woozi replies, eyes still on his notebook as he erases away at a line.

“Then why do you say so?” Jun asks, tiptoeing around the topic.

“I just know you. You’re normally a lot more optimistic and energetic.”

_And annoying._

He doesn’t say the last part, but Jun knows it can be true sometimes (not that it’s hard to annoy Woozi).

“I can’t be tired?” Jun replies, fishing through his luggage to find pajamas, and for an excuse.

“If you say so,” Woozi replies, unconvinced, and pops his headphones in. Woozi has no interest in teasing the truth out of someone who is playing coy and beating around the bush, so the conversation is over for now. Still, it makes Jun realize that his acting may not be as convincing as he’d thought.

 

Variety filming is no small occasion, Tzuyu learned quickly after debut. A one-hour show could take half a day to film, to say nothing of the hour or two (or three) spent on hair, makeup and wardrobe before even setting foot on set.

The purpose is relatively straightforward: they want her on the show to capture her reactions, and to increase viewership. Beyond the tedium, it’s usually rather easy; all there is to do is follow directions of the PDs and behave with the same vigilance as is usually necessary in public, while making sure the cameras catch her good side.

Today’s a mukbang of sorts: they’re on Please Take Care of My Refrigerator, the Korean version of the show her labelmate Jackson hosts in China. With Jungyeon by her side, Tzuyu feels like she can take on anything.

Well, almost anything.

They’ve moved onto the section of the show where the chefs make dishes for the guests to try, and today’s meal is none other than hotpot.

“It reminds me of the Chinese food I ate with my family as a child. Eating this again after so long makes me feel happy,” Tzuyu says to the hosts, reminding herself of the appropriate direction to look for the cameras to capture her while diligently providing the reaction she knows they want. The inclusion of the dish is deliberate, and she knows it’s the prompt for her and Cao Lu, another guest and Chinese import from girl group Fiestar, to provide their responses.

“Tzuyu kept saying while she was eating that these dishes remind her of her mom,” Jungyeon adds in, stretching the truth a touch, for effect.

“Yes, I used to eat similar dishes with my family when I was young,” Tzuyu says with a nod.

“It seems like eating this type of Chinese food makes you think of your mother,” the host comments.

“Uh,” Tzuyu replies, her voice wobbling. 

The memory of Junhui at Auntie Mei's from months ago is triggered: clear as day, the image of him, eyebrows knit in concern, chopsticks held aloft and beckoning her to take _'one bite’_ flashes through her mind. She begins to laugh in nervousness while emotion, sudden and swift, comes over her in a torrent and begins to close her throat.

Because this was the last time. The last time that she had anything that reminded her of home. She is reminded of Taiwan, of her mom, but overwhelmingly of this desperate aching inside of her that she has tried time and time again to wall off only to have the barriers forever be melting, disintegrating under the pressure of her yearning heart. 

She cannot unbraid these things, these feelings, of home and of longing; there’s a humming nostalgia wrapped in it all. She realizes that she cannot miss one without the dominoes falling for the others. In sum total, the joy of home is clouded out by a fresh, undeniable darkness.

Tears come, now. On broadcast, the apex of her discomfort, and yet this untenable, immovable reaction emerges. There are dozens of cameras filling the room, dozens more blinding stage lights shining on her and heating up the room, which is full of faux-friendly people who play nice but view her reaction in terms of the ratings it will bring rather than the pain behind it. This situation is not worth her tears.

(Well, not the immediate physical one. The backstory is another thing.)

“Tzuyu has never cried during a broadcast before. This is the first time,” Jungyeon says beside her, genuine shock, not _for-the-cameras shock_ , written across her features.

All Tzuyu can do is think _‘stop crying. Stop crying. You’re being filmed. Pull yourself together.’_

She gathers her will and stills the reaction within her, grounding herself in the moment and forcing thoughts of anything but the people and cameras before her from her mind.

Cao Lu makes a joke when asked if she misses her parents, and Tzuyu’s laughter lays down another layer, sealing off her unnerving thoughts.

And she tries, for the hundredth time, to forget.

 

A few days later, Junhui calls her, and she knows that she needs to speak to him now, because it’s too cruel to ignore him for any longer than she has—it’s been two weeks now—with no explanation. She knows he must be grasping at straws for reasons why, desperate to believe excuses by now.

“Hello?” she says tentatively.

“Are you avoiding me?”

His words run into one another, not sloppy, but less composed than usual.

“Are you drunk?” she asks.

“Answer the question.”

“ _You_ answer the question.”

“I asked first!” he becomes petulant, his tone whiny and demanding.

“Fine. No, I’m not avoiding you.”

She cringes at her own barely-plausible lie. It’s so obvious that she is.

“Don’t lie to me,” he says scathingly.

“Why would you ask a question if you think you already know the answer?” Tzuyu asks incredulously, chagrined at the anger in his tone.

“I wanted to hear you say it,” Jun replies.

“You’re unbelievable,” she says.

“ _You’re_ unbelievable!” Jun retorts.

“And you’re drunk!” Tzuyu says in annoyance.

“No I’m not. I only drank as much as Seungcheol and he’s fine.”

“Jun, you are not Seungcheol,” Tzuyu says, dismayed by the mere idea of the situation.

 _“Are you talking about me?”_ Tzuyu hears in muffled Korean in the background. _“Give that to me!”_

There’s a muffled skirmish and then Seungcheol’s voice comes through the phone, clipped and clear as day, equal parts amused and exasperated.

“Tzuyu?”

“Seungcheol?”

“Sorry about Jun, I told him not to try and keep up with me,” Seungcheol says, rather more lucidly than Jun.

“It’s okay. I kind of deserve it,” Tzuyu replies, catching her thumbnail between her teeth in guilt and nervousness.

“Why do you say— _Jun, hold on_ —why do you say that?” Seungcheol asks.

“I think you know.”

“Actually, I don’t,” Seungcheol replies lightly. Maybe Jun had kept his mouth shut, after all. 

“Huh. I guess you don’t, then. I’ve kind of been avoiding Jun,” she says, admitting so easily to Seungcheol what she couldn’t to Jun. She’s not really sure why it feels so different to say it to him.

“And why’s that?”

 _'Because we kissed and I'm having an existential crisis about it'_?. No, try again. She doesn't want to lie to Seungcheol of all people, but there's no way to elegantly put the truth. There are several beats of silence before Seungcheol continues.

“Actually, I don’t think I want to involve myself in it. But I do think that you should talk to him because avoiding him isn’t going to solve any problems.”

He’s right. Avoiding it will only make things fester but it’s intimidating to say the least. She’s still trying to make sense of everything: of her reality, of what she knows she can and can’t want in relation to what she _actually_ wants, and where to go from here. She doesn’t want to hurt him but she realizes too late that not speaking to him isn’t a neutral action.

“Can you tell him I’ll message him about it? I have to go,” Tzuyu says. Not that she _literally_ has to. But still, she has to.

“I don’t want to get in the middle of this…” Seungcheol says warily.

“ _Please,_ Seungcheol,” she says, pleading and exhaustion in her voice. He’s silent for a moment.

“Okay. But whatever’s wrong with you guys, I really hope you resolve it, soon. I don’t like you two fighting.”

“We’re not fighting,” Tzuyu says quickly.

“Semantics. Remember what I said.”

“I will. Bye, Seungcheol.”

“Later, Tzuyu.”

 

Tzuyu messaged Jun to meet her tonight because there is a weight pressing heavy down on her, heavier with every day and she needs to do this _now_ because if she doesn’t she may lose her courage.

So she’s in the basement practice room at JYPE in the middle of the night because she needs to be on her own turf. There’s a series of small beeps and then a melodic signal that the door’s unlocked from the outside, then Jun walks in.

“Hey,” he says, voice soft, and holds his arms out just slightly to wrap around Tzuyu but she backs away. Confusion and hurt colors his features but he just drops his arms again, taking a seat.

“What’s been up lately?”

Tzuyu’s on the defense, and walks across the room, placing distance between them, shifting weight back and forth on her feet in anxiety.

“What do you mean, what’s been up lately?”

“Are you kidding me, Tzuyu?” He asks, exasperated. She crosses her arms, looking up and away from him. The gravity and weight of this moment, and what she knows she needs to do, are sinking their teeth into her, and it feels sharper and more definite just looking at him.

He makes his way over to her, and tries to place a hand on her shoulder but she jerks away from his touch.

“I can’t do this, Jun.”

“What?”

Dismay and disbelief and a host of other unbelieving emotions all crease his face, like he’s not sure what she means and can’t absorb it, but fuck, didn’t he at least partly see this coming? He must trust more in the likelihood of situations to turn out well than she does. He was always the optimist to her doubtful realist—she refuses to consider herself a pessimist, thank you very much.

“The other night… it was all a mistake, a big misunderstanding. I don’t see you like that,” Tzuyu says, unable to look him in the eye as she speaks, but she glances up when she’s finished, and Jun sees fear shining in her eyes.

“Don’t lie to me,” Jun replies, defensive. She stutters, not expecting him to see through her so easily.

“It's true,” Tzuyu says.

Jun replays the moment of Tzuyu pulling him into her the other night through his mind. Everything in that—the gentle smile on her lips, the soft sincerity in the way she looked at him, the way she wrapped herself around him and kissed him, soft and lingering—she couldn’t fake that, could she? He refuses to believe it.

He presses a hand to her shoulder, forcing her to backpedal several steps until her back hits the wall. He stands over her, a determined look in his eyes, and runs his fingers slowly, feather-light down the column of her neck and over her shoulder. Her chest rises and falls more rapidly, something desirous and fatal bubbling up inside of her.

He leans forward, mouth millimeters from her ear.

"Stop. _Lying._ "

He pulls back to look her in the eye and every molecule within her feels like it wants to close the gap between them, for lips ebb and flow as the tide does, kaleidoscope colors blooming in the blackness of her eyes, delineation between them a thing of the past.

However, she summons every infinitesimal bit of her self-control and pushes him away.

"I'm not lying. I was drunk."

"What?"

He’s taken aback by this, lips parting in a tiny, befuddled _‘o’._

"You heard me. I'm sorry if I got carried away that night but I wasn't in my right mind."

"You didn't seem drunk," he counters, halfway musing to himself. He reviews the night for the hundredth time and wonders: had he missed glassiness in her eyes? A slowness in her actions? Words running together? In his memory none of those are present, but it has been weeks and the details are faded, blurry around the edges now.

"Give it a rest, Jun. I know how much I had, and I know how I felt," she says, her words edgy and sharp.

“Why are you being like this?” Jun asks. The Tzuyu he knows is sweet and thoughtful and inquisitive, if a little closed off, but this… this is unprecedented rudeness.

He resists one last time, and she knows that the only way to protect them both is to crush him. She had so wanted not to have to pull this card. But it's the only way. She knows she has to hurt him now, because this is inevitable. If she can rip through his loyalty and trust now, at least the break will be clean, have a chance to set and heal. Things between them are not meant for this world, for daylight. They're condemned to forever be ships passing at night, in fear.

"Jun, come on. Be realistic. What makes you think someone like me would get with someone like you?"

There’s a pause while that registers with him, like he’s reviewing the words to make sure he’s heard them properly.

“What the hell do you mean by that?” Jun asks, defensive.

“You know what I mean, Jun,” she says, her voice all cold and dismissive. _‘It’s the only way,’_ she reminds herself. In another life, they could be, but they’d made their choices and now the only thing left for them was to accept the consequences.

“I don’t. Enlighten me, please.”

“You don’t see it? I’m being lauded as one of the most beautiful and popular girls in the country. And you’re… you’re… I don’t have time for someone like you,” she says icily. She’s impressed she doesn’t choke on her own words. “You even said it yourself, the other day, _‘we can’t all be Twice-level popular’_.”

“Bullshit,” he says in a whisper, after letting her words sink in and simmer. “Bullshit,” he repeats, voice raised and hoarse and cracking. She’s the one hurting him, so why does it feel like he’s twisting a dagger in her with the pained inflections and frustration in his voice?

“It’s not bullshit. It’s fact.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, Tzuyu?” Pause. Desperation. Hesitance. Silence. “So you're going to throw everything away between us, just like that?" Something durable and fixed shatters inside of her, at the vulnerability, the pleading in his voice. “I feel like I don’t even know you. Whatever the fuck has gotten into you, all this shit that you’re saying, this isn’t the Tzuyu that I know.”

“Then I guess you don’t know me very well, Junhui,” she says coldly.

He gives her a look that is long and scathing. Beneath she can see the hurt and confusion of the boy who ardently, sincerely gave his heart for her to stomp it into the dirt in return.

Instead of replying, he stands, and backpedals towards the door.

“Whatever, Tzuyu. Maybe someone, some day will live up to your standards,” he says, darkly flippant and full of tightly regulated agitation, shutting the door loudly behind him. The room is silent save for the sound of his retreating footsteps, and then the click of the outside door as he exits through it.

She unravels as soon as he leaves. It’s the only way, she reminds herself again and again and again, trying to fix the idea in her brain. Breaking his heart is the only solution with finality, the only way to make sure it never happens again because she doesn’t trust herself, either. They’re playing the most dangerous game, and from the outset they should’ve known that there would only be pain at the end.

 

Jun strides at a fast clip at first, until his legs betray him and he stumbles one too many times over the concrete and forces himself to slow down. But partly—mostly—he’d just wanted to get as far away from Tzuyu as possible. Once his heartbeat and breathing slows to normal he pulls out his phone, dialing a number he hasn’t called in a while. Maybe ever.

Because his mind’s still abuzz, ablaze, and he needs something _else_ right now.

“Hello?”

“Hey Jieqiong, are you busy?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/n: sorry guys. I worship chaos. Plus the whole unflinching realism thing.
> 
> Pls gib comments, they feed my motivation to finish this story (there’s probs around 2-3 chapters left).
> 
> I’m always on tumblr and I love to chat. Questions/concerns/discussions/requests: rgywrites.tumblr.com.


	11. eleven

A tall building stretches high above Jun, the siding speckled by lights belonging to residents who must be awake at stupid o'clock. He enters it through the parking garage, taking the stairs instead of the elevator because he's full up with this antsy feeling like he's going to crawl out of his skin if he's still for too long.

Outside of his destination he checks his phone to make sure he's at the right door, takes a breath to steel himself, then knocks.

He’s here because he called Jieqiong in the middle of the night to ask if she’s busy, of all things, and somehow, some way she’d invited him over because maybe his voice had sounded a little more torn up than he’d hoped it would, and maybe they’ve never been soul-baringly close because he’s never given them a real chance to be close, y’know?

Because he can't talk to Minghao about this; it's far too raw and embarrassing. He can't talk to his mom who doesn't know or Seungcheol who would in all likelihood respond with a defeated, _‘again?’._ Wonwoo's sick and he can't burden him like this, and he doesn't want anyone in the team to know about it whatsoever, for that matter, because the things that she said would hurt them, too. Talking about it wouldn’t be a salve for him right now, besides.

“Hey,” Jieqiong says, door open; the light of the hallway pours into her darkened common room to reveal her pajama-clad form. She’s barefaced and her hair is nearly dry from a shower, cascading tousled over her shoulders and down her front. “Come in.”

She widens the door and Jun follows her, pulling off his shoes on the way to the couch. It’s late and the common area is dark save for the side table lamp from which a small glow of yellow light spills.

“What’s going on, Jun?” Jieqiong asks, folding her legs beneath her to sit on the couch beside him.

“There’s just some shit. I don’t really want to talk about it right now,” Jun says, draping himself onto the couch more so than sitting. The quiet pat of rain begins; the summer storms are unrelenting this year.

“O…kay?” she replies, dragging the word out skeptically but she doesn’t pry. She waits for him to continue. He’s here, so there must be a reason.

“It’s just… am I a loser, Jieqiong? Honestly,” he struggles to say, stumbling over his words, tugging them out syllable by syllable.

Jieqiong snorts, but stills her laughter when she sees that he’s utterly serious in asking so.

“Do you ever get asked a question to which the answer feels so obvious, so glaring that it seems ludicrous to even ask in the first place?” She starts. Jun nods. “This is like that. Jun, of _course_ you’re not. What would ever even prompt you to say that?”

He ignores the question, taking her hand and guiding her closer to him; she complies slow and lacking in understanding until he is kissing her, threading his hands through the hair at the base of her scalp, gentle gentle. 

Where the kiss the other day was fireworks, this is smolder. It’s artificial sweetener, an almost-right version of what he really wants. It’s still good enough.

Because ultimately it comes down to want, not need. And if Tzuyu doesn’t want him—which she so plainly, obtusely doesn’t—then it doesn’t matter if this isn’t her. What matters is Jieqiong’s hands rising to his jaw and splaying out over his skin, the tiny sighs that escape her, and fact that she is kissing him back.

“Where… where did that come from?” she asks, breathless, when he tilts his forehead to hers to give pause.

“You didn’t like it?” he murmurs, kissing down her jawline.

“I didn’t say that,” she says, the gusto out of her voice at his ministrations. “It’s just… what about Tzuyu?”

“Why do you say that?” he demands, pulling back inches, fixing her with a pointed, intent look. She startles the tiniest bit at his abrupt movement, her eyes flashing wide for a scarce moment.

“Isn’t it obvious? I mean, Jun, I’ll kiss you and that’s nice and it’s alright but you know it doesn’t mean the same thing between us.”

Christ, is he that transparent? He came here for a distraction and yet is slapped in the face, again. Has to explain himself, again.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he grumbles, collapsing into Jieqiong’s chest, boneless in his exhaustion from the day and the fight and… everything, really. Every aspect of every thing bearing down on him lately.

“Is that why you’re here?”

“I _said,_ I don’t want to talk about it,” he repeats, slightly edgy, and gives her arm a squeeze to punctuate it.

“Okay, okay,” Jieqiong says, threading her fingers through his hair and dragging her nails across his scalp in a manner that makes all poisonous thoughts momentarily clear his brain. “You’re here for respite. I get it.”

He’s relieved that Jieqiong gets it, that he doesn’t have to explain himself, because he needs this. It doesn’t have to mean anything; it’s better that it doesn’t. And he knows that Jieqiong has been cooped up too, needs this affection too; she’s usually amidst vast swaths of people she scarcely trust and needs something to make her feel alive, just as he does. It’s only human. He doesn’t know her body the same way as others before, but he’s a fast learner.

 

Several days pass, and Tzuyu begins to be able to forget what’s happened for pockets of time, until it all comes rushing back and ice fills her veins. She keeps reminding herself that this feeling will fade. This guilt is fleeting but consequences are forever.

She summons all of her fortitude and attempts to move on with her life: filming, photoshoots, practice, repeat. Jun is silent, and the group chat is dead save for a single message from Minghao which neither she nor Jun answered. She’s undecided on whether or not that’s a relief.

This is what she wanted. This is how life is supposed to be. She is course correcting. There was fallout but it’s less than there would be in other circumstances. It hurts but it’s for the best.

These become her mantras.

Take a shower; remind yourself it was for the best. Spend an hour getting hair and makeup done; remind yourself that you are moving on. Go for a long ride in the van to a schedule; remind yourself that this is how life is supposed to be.

She knows it’ll be okay. She knows it’ll take time. She knows one day that her gasping, aching heart will heal and that it’ll all be fine. She knows, she knows, she knows.

Well, that’s the narrative she’s spun for herself.

 

 

Jun continues on with his work, and as Seventeen’s started promoting for ‘Very Nice’ it’s easy to be distracted from unkind thoughts all day. He focuses on the fact that he’s center for the dance break, going over and over and over the choreography and his expressions. He doesn’t have time for his confidence to falter.

He draws in on himself, still. He’s _there_ with everyone but it’s hollow, and he begins to feel awkwardness grow between himself and the other members. He feels the distance because he’s hiding something, hiding a lot, actually, and one side of him feels that he owes him the truth of why he’s become more subdued and withdrawn lately, but how would he even begin?

He tries not to think about what happened, really. Still, he struggles with the competing thoughts of _‘what if she’s right?’_ and _‘no, she can’t be.’_ Being in front of a deafening crowd helps to reinforce the latter. There’s nothing else he can do but move forward. Time heals all wounds, he reminds himself endlessly.

Until he forgets his choreography onstage, while he’s in the center. The guys laugh it off because what else is there to do? His group members know him to be an endless pit of confidence (verging on self-absorption, _allegedly_ ), so he laughs it off with them, promising to do better next time. But still, it gnaws away at Jun, in his unsettled, sleep-deprived mind. 

Until now, he’s been angry at Tzuyu. Angry at her for being so mean, angry at her for what she said to him.

But he berates himself, because he’s not an amateur, this is is _job_ , and he’s made an unthinkable error.

In the shower, he lets the hot water pour over him and hopes to wash all of the heaviness of the day away, an intangible thing pairing with the water swirling the drain, binding to the molecules on an imperceptible but incontrovertible level.

The shower floor is probably all manner of disgusting but he sits, unable to hold himself upright any longer; he’s out of the mental energy rather than his body giving way. It’s all crumbling and he with it. 

He’s not one for crying—hasn’t in a year? He can’t even remember, excepting the hint of tears when they won for the first time on Show Champion—but feels burning at the back of his eyes and knows that today is the day that breaks the streak.

Because underneath it all—underneath the rejection and the swell of emotion that comes from freshly relieved stress—she’s right. She’s right. She’s so right about him, and today only proved it. He’s given the opportunity to be the face of the group, and he chokes.

Why would someone like her want to be with someone like him? He’s a nobody by comparison; nearly every person in Asia and a few in the West would know her name, even if they’d never heard of Twice. He’s Junhui, just Junhui: an expendable member of ascending group that’s on the precipice of solidifying their position but that still hasn’t quite. It feels like there’s a gasping, aching puncture in his chest, thinking about it. He tries not to, always. He tries to mask it all behind cocky self-assurance and brotherly bonds but in reality, he feels like dust in the wind. 

(Okay, handsome dust. He’ll always have that going for him, he thinks, trying to level with himself.)

After reveling in misery, he picks himself up, finishes his shower, and accepts it. Because the only thing there is to do is to move forward, because today’s not a good day to fall apart.

 

 

Hiding things from Minghao proves to be well and truly futile. There’s requisite summer downpour roaring just outside their dorm, and someone has opened a window so the heady, fresh air fills the room. Jun’s sat on the floor, back against the couch, when Minghao sidles up next to him.

“What’s wrong?” Minghao asks in Mandarin.They’re mostly alone, aside from Hoshi and Dokyeom in the kitchen, from which a non-negligible amount of crashing and banging is going on.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Jun replies casually, eyes glued to his phone.

So Minghao sits on him.

“I’m not getting up until you tell me what has been wrong with you lately,” Minghao says, giving Jun a threatening look, his hands placed firm but warning on Jun’s shoulders.

“You know I can pick you up, right?” Jun says, miffed. He eyes Minghao; the look contains a hint of a challenge.

“My point stands. Ever since the birthday party, you and Tzuyu have been super weird and I’m in the middle of it, so I’d like to know what exactly I’m in the middle of, please and thanks,” Minghao counters, the formality tacked onto the end dripping with sarcasm.

“Why don’t you ask her, then.” Jun grumbles, pushing Minghao off of him to stand.

“Hey,” Minghao cuts in, incensed, and grabs Jun’s hand to keep him from turning away. “Whatever it is that you’re fighting with her about, don’t take it out on me. Okay?”

That gives Jun pause, and he considers just how their wall of silence must be affecting Minghao. Minghao is friends with both of them, too, and must have no idea what’s going on or why, and both of them have left him floating in limbo for the last week. Jun would normally confide in him, so this shouldn’t be any different.

Jun sighs, sitting back down.

“I guess I should start at the beginning,” Jun starts, playing absently, anxiously with the hem at the bottom of his shirt. “So, at the birthday party we kissed. Which isn’t bad in and of itself, but long story short is that it turned out to be a bad, bad idea.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Oh, and to top it all off, she was drunk, which makes it all disingenuous. And it makes me feel like shit, both for not noticing that she was and for taking advantage of it. Not that I meant to, but you know what I mean. Just the fact that it happened.”

Minghao fixes Jun with a look like his head has fallen off, and then he begins to laugh. This incenses Jun, because here he is practically baring his soul, talking about his guilty feelings because Minghao all-but-demanded it, and now Minghao’s _laughing_ at him?

Through his laughter Minghao shakes his head and says, “no, she wasn’t.”

“That’s what I thought at first too, but apparently she was and—why are you laughing?” Jun asks in exasperation as Minghao continues to do so.

“No Jun, I don’t think you understand. I know she wasn’t drunk because I _gave_ her the alcohol.”

“You _what?_ "

Honestly, Minghao begins to make less and less sense as time passes.

“Relax. It was this low-proof liqueur. At maximum, three drinks in total, which she drank over the entire party. You do the math. I just wanted her to loosen up for once, you know? Like if she thought she was drinking, she’d relax and do what she wanted. And what do you know, I was right.”

“So she… she…” Jun grapples to find the right words, and to get his mind around the consequences in the context of all of the events that have passed since.

“Did exactly what she wanted to,” Minghao finishes the sentence for him, with a nod and a self-satisfied smirk. Moral issues aside, it casts a new light on the situation.

“Then why… Jesus, why did she say all of that shit…”

“What shit?”

“We fought. It was pretty bad.”

This may be the understatement of the year, Jun thinks.

“What did she say?”

“Well first that everything that happened between us was a misunderstanding, which I thought and still think is bullshit.”

“Definitely. You should see the way she ogles you.”

“Yah!”

“It’s true though…”

“I doubt it. I mean, at the end she said…” Jun hesitates, looking away from Minghao in a mix of shame and self-consciousness, “she said this stuff about how she wouldn’t stoop down to my level. How she’s so much more popular than I am, and basically that I’m dirt on the bottom of her shoe.” 

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah. Verbatim, _‘what makes you think someone like me would get with someone like you?’_ ”

“What. The fuck? That is not okay.”

“Yeah, I know. And the way she said it had such venom. It was just… cruel. Especially since we’re friends, and good friends. Or so I thought. I don’t know anymore, Minghao. Jesus.”

“She is not gonna get away with this,” Minghao says, an ominous quiet to his voice.

“I don’t like the sound of that…” Jun says warily, visions of Minghao throttling Tzuyu dancing in his head.

“You shouldn’t.”

 

 

Lights speckle the skyline and refract off of the river, creating a whizzing, glittering cityscape on the other side of the van window, all refracted through the summer rain thrumming against it. Tzuyu’s curled up in the back seat alone, drained from today’s schedules, while Dahyun occupies the middle row. The two have just finished filming for a variety show—Girls Who Eat Well—which Tzuyu likes because she gets to eat and doesn't have to worry about fumbling over her Korean while the cameras bear down on her. Not that she minds speaking, but it's a welcome change.

Still, after filming all day she and Dahyun need a break from one another. There's no animosity and they've always gotten along fine, but their dispositions are such that they need a little space every now and then.

Their manager parks the car and sends the girls up the elevator in the car park ahead of her. The elevator dings at the girls’ floor and they step out, making their way down the hallway.

What Tzuyu doesn't expect, though, is to find Minghao sitting on the floor outside of their front door.

“How did you get up here?” Tzuyu asks upon the sight of him. There’s several security barriers to entry just to get into the building and how he managed to get past them, she’s keen to know.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says dismissively. There’s a terse quality to his body language and manner of speaking, so Tzuyu doesn’t pursue it further. 

He follows them into the dorm, and Tzuyu lets Dahyun have their bedroom to herself and instead leads Minghao downstairs to the basement salon in their dorm. It goes without saying that they’d ought to be alone for whatever conversation they’re about to have. 

She flicks the lights on and is suddenly acutely aware of how cluttered the room is with clothing racks, shelves full of accessories, hair tools, and tables near-obscured by makeup. Though tidy, the sheer volume of it makes it look like it’s in disarray. All told, the salon isn’t an ideal place to talk, but at least it’s private.

She turns to Minghao, who is tall and thin as a wire; he has his hair parted handsomely and still wears remnants of makeup, likely from some filming earlier in the day. It’s the strangest juxtaposition of youth and adulthood, like he’s playing dress up. Though, the same could be said of her, for all of her elegant styling that seeks to mask her true age.

“What the hell is wrong with you, Tzuyu?”

There seems to be so much of people asking her this lately. His words punctuate the silence and seem to ring in the air, echoing through her mind, because damn, there is a lot that’s wrong with her lately, and she’s been asking herself the same question.

“I know what you said to Jun. And before you get indignant that he told me, remember that you’re in the wrong here and have no right to be upset,” he says when she opens her mouth to interject. She shuts it again, looking sheepish. “You realize that by saying those things about Jun that you’re saying them about me too, right Tzuyu? And about Seungcheol, and all of the rest of the guys. Regardless of if there was any truth to it, saying it like that—like it makes you better than us and you wouldn’t stoop down to our level—is all sorts of messed up.”

She’s doing this all for her career—the breaking friendships and stifling her feelings—but at what cost? It’s painful for her, and for Jun of course, but had she been blind to the true reach of the fallout? She never meant for it to affect so many people, but it’s her own fault for allowing and encouraging these boys to wend their way into her life. The weight of realization makes her heart sink, a feeling much like she’s swallowed a stone pulling heavy in her chest.

“I’m sorry, Minghao. I’m sure that’s not enough to make you feel better, but I never meant to say that about you. And the truth is… with Jun…” she hesitates, gaping and at a loss for words because she knows that whatever she says to Minghao is like letting the truth out into the universe. When only she knows, it’s contained and could never get out to others. As much as she values Minghao’s friendship and doesn’t think he’s a snitch, there’s still the chance that some way, somehow, someone else could find out, whether it be from him intentionally telling Jun, or saying it when he’s drunk, or even just hinting at it in a benign way that would lead to its reveal. It’s so hard to say, but really, she owes it to him. “I was—am—scared.”

“I don’t follow. What are you scared of?” He’s still defensive, but the indignant frown he wore moments ago relents in his surprise at her admission. Maybe he’d expected a fight. 

“I’m scared of a scandal. Of another scandal, that is. And I didn’t trust myself not to… not to… not to take things further with him—we kissed, I’m sure you know by now. I knew I had to ruin our friendship because it was too dangerous. What I went through, Minghao, I can’t… I can’t go through that again,” she says, her voice breaking on the last word. She crosses her arms and looks up to the corner of the room where the wall meets the ceiling. She tries to focus on the cobweb growing there, because _god_ , she does not want to cry right now. It would be so ridiculous, after all that she’s done, to play the victim.

“So, you like him so much that you had to hurt him?” Minghao says, his speech slow and oddly paced, like he’s trying to fit the two opposing ideas together.

“Basically.”

"Christ on a bike, the pair of you are so dramatic," Minghao says under his breath. He lets out a sigh. “You should apologize to him, definitely."

"I wish. I know he deserves it. But that would defeat the entire purpose of what I said."

"Did it ever occur to you, Tzuyu, that you could have just told him all of this that you’ve said to me?"

She purses her lips.

"It's too risky, Minghao. It's one thing to agree to nothing happening between us and it's another to follow through."

Minghao lets out a quiet laugh, looking away from Tzuyu while he pulls his bottom lip under his top teeth and shakes his head in resigned exasperation. Then he meets her eyes.

"Why do you have so little faith in yourself? And in Jun?"

She gapes for a moment in an uncanny likeness of a goldfish. Because on one hand he’s right, and she should trust herself and one of her closest friends to care for her enough to understand the situation, but on the other she and Jun could fall prey to the same weaknesses as anyone.

“Because. People are fallible.”

"Then why are you punishing _him_ for that, Tzuyu?” Minghao says, anger rising in his voice. “Do you know how much he must be worrying about the demeaning things you said? About the fact that you were drunk?—which I know you lied about, by the way. Jesus, are you only thinking of yourself right now?"

Each question is said with the same disparate vigor, frustration in every line. Thing is, she knows she deserves it. She knows that this is mild in comparison to the things she’s said, pure intentions behind both tongue-lashings aside.

But the thing that is hardest to admit, now that all’s said and done: Minghao is right.

 

 

Tzuyu dredges into the dorm after a long day filled with photoshoots and the dorm is oddly a ghost town. It’s odd because the rest of her group members have had a break this evening, but perhaps they’ve gone out to dinner or to a shop. Before checking on things, she heads to her room to shed her belongings, and to see if at least her roommates are home.

However, she walks in to her bedroom to find Jun sitting on her bed, shoes off, legs crisscrossed.

“Hey?” She asks hesitantly, allowing her bag to slide down her shoulder to the floor.

“Hey. Chaeyoung made me come. There was something to do with talking to Minghao. Everyone thinks we should talk or whatever.” Jun says flatly, his body language curled in on itself and defensively, before making hesitant eye contact with her. She stays silent. He shifts in his seat, visibly discomfit. “I guess I should go.”

He says it, but he doesn't move to get up. There’s a long silence where Jun sits, eyes fixed to the wall behind Tzuyu, and she stays still, because she feels paralyzed in surprise and shame.

"Did you mean it, Tzuyu?” He asks, his voice betraying his vulnerability. “All that stuff that you said about being above me? Because I've been turning it over in my head and God, it makes me feel like shit. I'm sorry if I pushed you. I never meant to; I always thought you wanted it too, but that's my fault."

Hearing him apologize is the thing that puts pressure on the fault lines in her, and makes them crack and slide unfixably. She knew she was too weak for this; it's why she'd tried to shove him so far away that he'd never come back.

She sinks to her knees, misery overtaking her features before she presses her hands to her face.

"I can't do this Jun, I can't,” she says, distraught.

"Tzuyu, what do you mean? I—” 

There’s alarm in his voice, and if anything that makes it worse.

"I can't do this! I can't pretend like I don't… like I don’t want to be with you so much that it literally, physically hurts. I can't... I..." As she speaks she rakes her hands through her hair, huffing after she’s finished. He stands and pads over to her.

"What?... But then why did you say...?" His voice is weak with uncertainty. He crouches down and tries to take Tzuyu’s hands in his but she pulls them out of his grasp.

“Why do I always have to be the one in control here, Jun? Answer me that.” Tzuyu’s voice is shrill with desperation, set off by his gesture. “You know just as well as I do the consequences and yet you keep pushing. It makes me think you don’t care about me at all.”

Jun is quiet when she’s finished.

“Is that what you really think of me?” He asks softly.

“I don’t want to. It’s just this heinous double standard between boys and girls and I’m sick of it, you know? You push, I have to resist. It’s such a tired narrative. I’m tired of it.” She stands, jittery anger commanding that she move. “And the worst thing? The onus is on me, in the end. If we get in trouble you’ll get a slap on the wrist and I’ll get ashes. Not even just from our companies. Look at every damn scandal that has happened. The girl gets villainized. Every. Time. And yet you keep pushing, and it’s reckless!”

“Tzuyu,” he says, calm and tempered, as she paces before him.

“What?” she fires back, a wild look in her eyes and heat rising in her cheeks.

“I need you to take a deep breath, ok?” He says softly.

She closes her eyes and furrows her eyebrows, realizing how worked up she’s gotten. Her chest rises and falls in a caricature of a deep breath, and her head tilts back on the exhale. She opens her eyes and the light fixture she’s staring at blazes against her retina. She stares at it for a moment too long, burning the shape of the glow into her vision.

“So what you said, the other day?” Jun asks.

“I was trying—and failing, I guess—to push you away.”

“So you didn’t mean…?” he trails off, leaving his sentence incomplete. He doesn’t have to say it for her to know.

“No.” She says it after a long, reluctant pause. Because she doesn’t want to hurt him, but this seals the fact that she’s undone all of the protections that she tried to lay, and they both suffered for naught. Frankly, she feels quite dumb.

“Tzuyu, you know, if you would talk to me, I would know all of these things that have been weighing on your mind.”

“But how am I supposed to do that? Was I supposed to say _‘hey, I can tell that you like me but you shouldn’t’_?”

“Would’ve been a damn sight better than _‘what makes you think someone like me would get with someone like you’_ ,” Jun replies, humor edging his voice; still, the point is unmistakable.

“The thing is, Jun—god, I can’t believe I’m admitting this—the truth is that I didn’t say anything because part of me liked it. Liked it too much. The attention, the feeling like someone cared for me, it was so good. I have to pretend to reciprocate feelings for people on a daily basis, and actually feeling it? It was too alluring to deny. And it felt dangerous in a good way. But it went too far.”

These are all the things she has been so loath to realize, and to admit them now is to admit them to herself, too. Because she did encourage him, and she did like it, and neither of them are blameless in all of this.

“Did it?”

“Think what would happen if anyone saw us,” she fires back, worry cutting thick through her voice. Jun sighs heavily and looks to the ceiling as though he’s trying to gather his thoughts.

After a pause, he speaks.

“Ok, Tzuyu. I get it. I get everything you’re saying about fear, about the divide in consequences, all of it. It’s upsetting to know that you thought all along that I didn’t understand that. But for one, I think it's possible to be careful about things—about anything. It doesn't have to be either obeying the rules, or scandal. I've lived most of my life in the spotlight, is the thing. You can't be afraid of everything. That's not living.”

And it’s true; the realization in his wisdom is humbling. How does she deign herself to know more than him when his life and public scrutiny have been synonymous for nearly as long as she has been alive? She nods, and allows him to continue.

“Second off, I do care about you, and your well being, and notably I never said we should date or be together so it makes me sad when you act like I'm just blundering through things without consideration for you or your career and consequences you could face. We kissed and it happened, okay? We don’t have to date, you know. We can just be friends.”

She doesn’t deserve this, and she full well knows it. He’s been far too forgiving and understanding and she feels it, the undammable thing welling up in herself again.

“Yeah, friends,” she echoes, voice quiet.

He holds out his arms and she steps closer into them automatically, resting her cheek against him as his arms drape around her shoulders and hers circle his waist, her fingers sinking down into his skin to prove that this is tangible and real. It’s such a simple thing but it feels like all is right with the world, with this. All of her concerns feel buffered by these soft, pink feelings. 

"Jun?" She says, pulling back the tiniest bit to look up at him.

"Hm?" He hums contentedly, looking down at her with a bemused upturn at one corner of his lips.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s… it’ll be okay.” 

Jun hesitates, because he’s forgiven her, but the wound is still far too fresh for all to be well.

She doesn't say anything so he halfway pats her head, which turns into a stroke down her hair where his hand comes to a rest on her shoulder.

Everything, everything, everything in her wants to kiss him. Because they are too close right now and they’ve just bared their souls and this is the most contented she’s felt in nearly a month. And he is right: she can’t live inside of her comfort zone cage forever, paralyzed by fear.

She is strong but she has her limits, too. 

She presses up to her tiptoes and her lips brush his for such a brief moment that it almost feels like it didn't happen.

It’s a truth she’s been running from, far and fast, and ultimately it had to catch up to her. It seems like no matter how she resists, when they’re alone she gets pulled back in by his gravity and fighting it is to uselessly avail herself of peace. This is what she was right to be fearful of.

"Don't do this if you don't mean it," Jun says; his voice is deadly quiet.

He looks her in the eye, face set with a complicated sentimentality, his expression laden with worry, still.

"You said it yourself: we're friends," she says assuredly, closing the gap between them once more, and then they are soaring, and for this moment, everything bad falls away and there is only this, and it is at once electric and terrifying and so, so good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long!! I had to pick up my life and move at the last minute so that threw me for a serious loop. I do hope you like this chapter.
> 
> As always, comments give me the motivation to finish this story!! So please do!! Other writing projects have been pulling my attention but I really want to finish this properly.
> 
> I'm at rgywrites.tumblr.com and I'm always on. Discussions, requests, questions, etc are welcome.


	12. twelve

_Weibo_

_Tzuyu: I apologized to Jun_

_Tzuyu: and I wanted to apologize to you again, and say thank you for being patient with me. You were right about everything._

_Minghao: it’s alright, Tzuyu_

_Minghao: I hope you learned something, at least_

_Minghao: but if you ever pull something like that again…_

 

So, they’re friends.

Friends who kiss each other sometimes—okay, maybe just the two times—but friends nonetheless.

Jun calls her not every night, but every few, and they talk a while before bed. It’s usually silly stories or letting off steam from frustrations of the day. Hearing his voice, and the sincerity and affection in it is the sweetest part, though. He asks her generic things like if she’s eaten and particular things, like if she’s talked to her mom and how her group members are doing, and they speak of their concerns and frustrations and fears, not every time, but often at the end.

And for Jun, every day is a bit more of a salve. Where was once an open wound is healing bit by bit, with every caring word of hers and story told without misgivings. It’s not perfect but it’s progress.

His ego is not what any sane person would term _fragile_ , but still, his trust is shaken. Logically, he knows that what she did had altruistic intentions. But logic doesn’t seem to prevail over pesky automatic emotions, and his gut still pains when he thinks about what happened in a way that he hates to admit means that he’s not past it.

But still, it is strange, the fact that they’re friends and they know how the other feels and that it’s just a freeform, floating arrangement. But they’re navigating a tricky thing in a situation for which there is no manual, and so strange will have to do for now.

 

 

There’s a slice of time between Seventeen’s promotions and before their Asia tour begins, and just before Twice is off to KCON where the two groups manage to cobble together a movie night. It’s the first time they’ve all been able to meet up since the birthday party nearly two months ago. It’s one last hurrah post-promotions and pre-tour, before they’ll be far-flung for a month. The girls all bring their pajamas along, lest they be captured in pajamas in public on their journey over, and so that they can be comfortable. It lends itself well to a feeling of familiarity between the two groups.

At the front door, Seungcheol greets them in a onesie. The girls break into titters at the sight of him in his footsies and hood.

“What?” he asks to their giggles.

“Seungcheol you are very… special,” Nayeon says with a pat to his shoulder and laughter peppering her speech, before she steps past him into the living room and the others follow.

There’s a miniature wave as the boys move to greet them in the entryway, exchanging greetings and bows and some hugs. Jun ruffles Tzuyu’s hair, despite her protests, and Minghao gives her a knowing look before pulling her into a hug that turns into a headlock.

The sound of Chaeyoung whining catches their attention and the three of them turn to see Wonwoo and Mingyu making a Chae sandwich.

“You guys are so embarrassing,” Chaeyoung grumbles when they let her go, eyes darting over to Vernon for such a tiny moment that Tzuyu’s sure she’s the only one who saw it. Vernon for one is talking to Dahyun, the pair of them having been friends since they appeared together on a TV show some months ago.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” Seungcheol says to Tzuyu, approaching her just as Jun and Minghao make to greet others.

“Uh,” Tzuyu replies, giving him another once-over, noticing that his onesie is decorated with tiny clouds, shooting stars, and yawning moons. She reminds herself once more that he is, in fact, four years older than her. “Same to you.”

“Don’t sound so convincing, now,” Seungcheol retorts, raising his eyebrows. “And you can’t fool me. I know that you think my jammies are totally awesome. Aren’t they, Joshua?”

Joshua’s been standing nearby talking to Nayeon, and Seungcheol must see it fit to drag him in for confirmation.

“Err..” Joshua hesitates, his manners and respect for his friends cut through by his true feelings.

“Seungcheol, I thought you said you didn’t need validation from others?” Nayeon interjects to save Joshua.

“I don’t _need_ it,” Seungcheol counters.

“I think it may be time for us to get changed,” Tzuyu says, looping her arm through Jungyeon’s nearby and dragging her away from her conversation. If they wait for Seungcheol and Nayeon to stop bickering they may be waiting forever. 

 

“I hope this movie isn’t too scary,” Momo says nervously as she pulls a sweater over her head, turning to the mirror to arrange her mussed hair.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. I’ll protect you,” Dahyun says, slinging her arms around Momo’s shoulders from the side in a semblance of a hug.

“Oh my gosh, I can’t believe this. I forgot pants!” Sana interjects in misery as everyone’s in various stages of changing; she holds up a shirt and sweater, which are Decidedly Not Pants.

“It’s ok, just ask one of the guys for one,” Nayeon says as she shimmies into her own pajamas.

“No way!” Sana replies, stricken at the mere thought. Before she can protest too much, Tzuyu pokes her head out of the door.

“Can anyone lend Sana some pajama pants?” she asks to the guys, most of whom are perched on the couch in an uncanny likeness of birds on a telephone wire.

“I got it.” Wonwoo pops up from his seat, deviating from his usual slow and subdued manner.

In the background Sana admonishes her, and a devious smile graces Tzuyu’s lips. Sana can thank her later.

 

Tzuyu’s on the couch beside Jihyo, who seems exceedingly distracted at the moment (possibly from Dokyeom sitting beside her, but that’s just a hunch), and Jun sits below her on the floor. She lets her fingers play absently through his hair, dragging her nails along his scalp from time to time. Without all the hairspray it’s actually quite soft, and she takes enjoyment from mussing it up into a ridiculous windswept look only to smooth it back down again. Occasionally she skates her fingers down the back of his neck, delighting in the goose bumps that rise at her touch.

Tzuyu’s seen this movie some years ago so she takes the opportunity to surreptitiously people-watch the group. Momo’s clutching onto one of Mina’s arms while Hoshi is clutching to the other, both wide-eyed in abject rapture, and Nayeon has managed to convince Jeonghan to let her braid his hair (though perhaps it’s the other way around and Jeonghan has conned her into it; Tzuyu wouldn’t put it past him).

Midway through the movie, Tzuyu uses the bathroom and on the way out she checks her reflection. What she sees in the mirror is a nearly-bare face and mussed hair. She smiles, scrunching up her hair and face with her hands. It’s liberating to not have to think of how she looks for a small stretch of time.

As she exits, Jun just so conveniently happens to be passing by. Too conveniently, actually.

He takes her by the hand, whispering, _‘come with me,’_ as he does. A brief glance to the living room shows the group enraptured in the movie, the light of the screen illuminating their faces in the darkness of the dorm, and then she is being turned rather against her will to be towed behind Jun.

He pulls her to a bedroom—probably his—shutting the door quietly behind him. The lock click is tiny but poignant.

“What’s going on?” she asks, but her heart thudding in her chest tells her the likely answer before he even has to say it.

And then he is kissing her, and it is more heady and frantic than the ones before, and it is burning more so than soaring and this is… this is… euphoric and amazing and she is backpedaling until the back of her legs hits the bedframe, possibly his bedframe, and she falls back onto it, her hand catching his.

And he looks so, so determined when he moves forward, over, and this is so much more than she could ever, would ever have thought would happen today (not that she didn’t entertain the possibility, but _still_ , there are 22 other prying eyes just beyond the bedroom door).

Because after 30 minutes of her applying and relieving pressure to his skin, dragging her fingernails across his scalp, her fingertips barely brushing the skin of his nape, inside him has arisen this need, urgent and welling, and damn if being alone like this isn’t the right thing for it.

And so like this, they tangle, and inside it is all molten and unfurling, and it is everywhere, everywhere. Her fingers have pressed up his shirt to hold fast to the skin of his back and it is all warmth and movement between them.

Then he pulls back, ever so slightly.

“I know I’ll be gone for a while, but don’t you dare forget about me,” he says all quiet and serious, before kissing ever so lightly at the skin from the space where her neck and shoulder meet. This sets off frissons firing warm and far-reaching in her.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she retorts, sass in her intonation but her voice is half-air from his attentions.

There’s a tug and she grips reflexively tighter to him, and he has flipped them so he’s now beneath her.

“Well then, don’t let me keep you,” he says; it’s both a retort and a challenge.

Tzuyu is filled with exhilaration encroached by fear. Because they are close—so close, too close—and though his dare is said jokingly this decision feels like it holds finality.

There’s a myriad of yelps from the common area, signifying a highlight of the movie and breaking their reverie.

“We should…” He says to break the silence.

“Yeah. We should.”

“Friends?” Jun says.

It’s becoming their mantra, and it feels like if they say it enough then everything between them is justified. It’s a comforting exoskeleton for them to cling to because, in spite of their dissonant actions, if they don’t say the truth then it’s not real, and it isn’t anything official and it isn’t anything reflected in reality, and it _can’t_ be wrong if it doesn’t exist. They’re just friends. _Just_ friends.

“Yeah, friends,” she echoes, though she doesn’t move. He sits up and just about when she thinks he’ll kiss her again, he juts his chin towards the door. It’s a signal for her to move, and it feels all-too-crass in contrast with her expectations.

But, of course he would. What is she thinking? They’re being cavalier already.

So she does get up, and he’s still sitting right where she left him when she reaches for the door handle only to look back at him.

“I’ll go first,” she says, twisting the handle, “though, you should probably fix your hair,” she comments, eyes averted, before slipping out the door and stepping back out into the cold, unknowing darkness.

 

 

“Wow, this room is so pretty,” Sana says, abandoning her suitcase in the doorway to run and flop back onto the hotel bed. The expansive, fluffy white duvet puffs up around her as she sinks into it, and Tzuyu jogs to follow her, jumping forward and catching a yelping Sana with her arm. The pair of them laugh and shriek, playing and fighting in the comforter.

On the other side of the room’s floor-to-ceiling windows, sporadic palm trees sway in the breeze, and just beyond the swarthy landscape of buildings and sprawling highways is the California shore. What a lucky venue for KCON.

 

 

The waves roar with their breaks along the shore, clear water giving way to a foaming crush against the sand. Tzuyu kicks her feet through the retreating water, feet sinking into the sand and leaving tracks where the group ahead of her did moments before only for it to be erased with the ebb of the water. It’s later in the day and all of the girls have gone down to the water to see the sun sink below the horizon.

Jihyo’s beside her, the pair of them having lagged behind with Jihyo’s earlier harraging of Tzuyu to take pictures of her with the sunset.

“So, how’ve you been lately?” Jihyo asks, linking her arm with Tzuyu’s as they walk behind the gaggle ahead.

“We’ve spent the last week in one another’s presence,” Tzuyu replies dryly in response. 

“I know, but you’ve seemed different lately, and we haven’t talked a lot in recent times, either. I thought something was up with you for a while there.”

“I’m ok now. I got in a fight with a friend but now everything’s sorted out.”

“Do I know this friend?” Jihyo asks gently, to the point that it’s suspicious as she normally has no qualms with prying.

Tzuyu pauses, reluctant to admit it.

“It’s Jun.”

“What were you fighting with Jun about?”

“I’d rather not say.”

Jihyo eyes her suspiciously but lets it go.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that too, besides.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I mean, I don’t like to tell you what to do with your life. But whatever’s going on with all of _that_ ,” Jihyo makes a sweeping hand gesture, “it’d be good if you guys were careful. Not that you’re not, but if pictures of you guys spending time together circulated, it’d be less than ideal.”

“Of course,” Tzuyu replies, her gaze glued to the sand ahead, insides clenching as though she’s been scolded even though Jihyo’s words are merely a reminder. “What makes you say this now?”

“Not anything in particular. I’ve just been thinking about it lately. Worrying, more like, about our future,” Jihyo says, furrowing her eyebrows and casting her eyes out over the choppy blue-black water. “I guess it all doesn’t feel real. And I know with our rapid success that there’s tons of people just waiting to tear us down. The fact that Dispatch is following us now is particularly disconcerting.”

“Wait, really?”

“I thought you knew this?”

“I mean, I thought it was likely, but at the same time it was never for sure. Why do you say it so certainly?”

“I overheard a conversation with one of the higher-ups and he was definitely on the phone with Dispatch discussing us. JYPE has something of a relationship with it, that’s for sure, but I’m not sure to what extent. Point is, we’d better be on our best behavior.”

“Yeah, our best behavior,” Tzuyu echoes halfheartedly, mind spinning with what Dispatch could possibly know about them already. She reviews in her mind all of the places she’s been in the last weeks and tries to recall if she’s seen anything suspicious, or if she’s _done_ anything suspicious in public view. She hasn’t been incautious, but the new information makes her second-guess everything. 

“And I know that part of it’s because we need to _look_ like we have a dating ban to seem available fans, but it still sucks,” Jihyo adds on.

“Wait, come again?” Tzuyu turns to look Jihyo in the face.

“It still sucks?” Jihyo repeats herself uncertainly.

“No, the other part,” Tzuyu corrects.

“We need to look like we have a dating ban?”

“Yeah, that part. Since when is it all about appearances?”

“Well, _technically,_ it’s not. We aren’t supposed to date because we should focus on achieving success. But the ban and its publicity are largely to make us seem more marketable.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. We have to _seem_ available to fans. For a lot of people being a fan, it’s escapism. They can’t really date us, but it has to seem like they could. That's what we're selling, in some ways. I feel conflicted about being complicit in it but it’s our curse though, isn't it? Being dehumanized and made salable because we're in the entertainment industry? Almost as if we're fictional characters.”

The Jihyo before Tzuyu has changed so much in the ten months since debut. Where before was an eager girl desperately yearning for her chance to perform is now a young woman who is all-too-learned of the uncomfortable ways of their industry. Only now she’s putting into words the things that Tzuyu has sensed but been unwilling to articulate to herself or voice to anyone else up until now. Because they’ve built their livelihoods on this glass castle, so what good can meditating on the philosophical implication of it do?

“I mean, yeah. You’re right.”

“And when I say it’s for appearances, it’s just that—and not to be arrogant, but—I think we’ve done it, Tzuyu. I think we’ve achieved that success and we’re so entrenched in public interest to the point that it can’t be undone. We made it. It still sounds so wild to say, but it’s true. And I know that part of it was from the public support that came after your… your… what happened to you in January.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess it did,” Tzuyu agrees softly. It’s a realization that she’s dwelled upon before but has only complicated feelings about. Was the trauma worth it? Is all of her notoriety predicated on pity? Would it all crumble apart if she were to only put her toe outside the line? 

“I don't mean to be complicit and encourage you to do anything against the rules, but if anyone deserves for the company to turn a blind eye, it’s you. I mean, there’s always outside eyes watching, waiting in the wings for us to mess up—but you put so much on yourself, girl, when you shouldn’t. When so much of what we have is owed to you.”

The realizations stop-motion in Tzuyu’s brain: _company, blind eye; what we have, it’s owed to you._ Does Jihyo really think this? When it all can be traced back to so many things; the reasons for their fame is a many-headed hydra of Sixteen and ShyShyShy and Momo’s ‘don’t beg’ dance and reality shows and foreign members and being from the monolithic enterprise that is JYP. How could she ever claim responsibility for _all_ of that?

“I can’t say I’m totally innocent, either,” Jihyo says to break the silence.

“You and Dokyeom?” Tzuyu comments, surprise in her voice more so at Jihyo’s admission than the predicament. 

“What? No! Gosh, Tzuyu,” Jihyo recoils defensively. She takes a few more silent steps forward, kicking the dirt up with them. “I mean… I wish.”

“Yeah?” Tzuyu encourages her.

“Yeah. And besides, I don’t think he sees me like that.”

“And you say Jun and I are obvious…” Tzuyu mumbles under her breath.

“Yah!” Jihyo exclaims defensively, shoving Tzuyu towards the water. Tzuyu swerves back towards Jihyo and stuffs her arm through the crook of Jihyo’s crossed ones, forcing her to link arms. “Besides, I never said anything about you and Jun being obvious. Are you trying to admit something to me right now?” 

“No. It’s just that you shouldn’t underestimate yourself so much, Jihyo. That’s such a bad habit of yours.” Tzuyu’s words are sincere but it would be a stretch so say that she’s not deflecting the question. 

“You realize I’m older than you, right?” Jihyo says to Tzuyu’s criticism.

“And _you_ realize that I’m not trying to boss you around. I just wish you’d believe in yourself more.”

“I do believe in myself, but it’s one thing to have fans and another for an _idol_ to be interested in me.”

Tzuyu snorts, breaking from Jihyo’s linked arms to cover her mouth with both of her hands.

“What?” Jihyo says, the smile on her face softening her demand.

“Unnie, _you’re_ an idol.”

“And?”

“You’re literally concerned that an idol wouldn’t be interested in you. Don’t you realize the backwardness of that logic? That he could think the same exact thing?”

Tzuyu can practically see the gears turning in Jihyo’s brain for her unfocused expression.

“I guess… I mean. Well. Maybe.” Jihyo settles on.

“Definitely,” Tzuyu corrects, smiling down at Jihyo before their attention is drawn to the flash of the sun dipping below the horizon, light reflecting through the hazy pink and purple swirls of cloud above, the last sigh of the summer sun before night falls.

 

 

Jun pours himself a second cup of tea until there’s a knock on his door, which slides opens to reveal Auntie Mei’s small, aging form. 

“Not here yet,” Auntie says to answer Jun’s expectant expression, setting down another pot of hot water on his table for yet more herbal tea. Auntie and her adamancy over herbs, Jun thinks with affectionate chagrin.

Jun drums his fingers on the table expectantly and checks his phone for as many times as minutes pass. He shouldn’t be nervous for this, and yet he is.

The bell at the front door tinkles and Jun hears rushed footsteps and a quick Mandarin exchange between Auntie and another familiar voice. Then there’s approaching footsteps and the door to his booth scrolls open a moment later.

“Hey, sorry I’m late,” a harried looking MingMing greets him, breaking into a wide grin at the sight of Jun.

“Hey, Ming,” Jun greets, standing to hug him. After, MingMing pulls back, grasping Jun by the upper arms.

“Look who’s all grown up?” MingMing says facetiously, still grinning, before Jun pushes his head to the side.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jun replies sarcastically, though he’s glad that they’ve slipped back into their joking rapport so effortlessly. 

The MingMing before Jun has grown more into his lankiness since the last time they saw one another; it’s been a solid 4 months now. His hair is unstyled but smartly cut, and he holds himself with the same mellow confidence as ever.

“So, how’s my replacement?” MingMing jokes, settling in across from Jun.

He’s referring to Minghao, of course, who entered Pledis as a trainee just around the time that MingMing was dismissed. Minghao fulfills the role of Chinese member that MingMing left behind, but other than the timing their similarities end there.

“Hey, don’t say it like that,” Jun protests.

“You know I’m joking, Jun.”

He does inject levity into the statement, but in every joke it feels like there’s shrapnel of truth, and Jun knows that MingMing is a good person but that doesn’t absolve the possibility of bitterness, even now.

“I know,” Jun softens, pouring MingMing a cup of tea.

“How’s your mom?”

“She’s good. She was happy to hear that we’re meeting up today.”

“Well. Don’t tell her _too_ much of what we talk about,” MingMing replies with a devilish grin.

“You know that you could never do wrong in her eyes. She still thinks you’re a saint for ‘taking me under your wing’ when I came to Korea.”

“You know you would’ve floundered without me!”

“Yeah, _right_ ,” Jun retorts with an eyeroll.

“You are sounding very ungrateful right now. Maybe I should take my good news somewhere else.”

“Good news?” Jun replies, interest piqued.

“I’m debuting soon. As in, 6 months soon.”

“Oh, shit! Oh. _Shit._ Ming,” Jun breaks into a wide grin. “Congratulations, man.”

MingMing’s eyes are glued to his tea in his shyness at the praise, and he’s doing a poor job of suppressing his grin. His eyes flit up to Jun’s and then over to the stone Buddha that’s sat on their table before he speaks.

“After so long it almost doesn’t feel real, you know? Like until it happens I don’t think I’ll really believe it.”

“I get that. Are you going solo or in a group?”

“Solo. It’ll be in China though, so we probably won’t get to see one another. Even less than since you debuted.”

It’s been long, too long, since MingMing has even been in the country, so this may spell disaster for their friendship. Jun knows all too well how bonds can deteriorate with enough time and distance. He can count on his fingers how many true friends he still has outside of Korea.

“Man, that sucks. The distance part, not the debuting. I’m really happy for you for that. And I’m sure I’ll be in and out of China in the next few years.”

“Oh?” MingMing raises an eyebrow, setting his cup back on its saucer. “So how’s work for you lately, then? I hear you’re going on a tour?”

“Oh yeah, around Asia. We’re in final rehearsals already. It’s gonna be exhausting, but great.”

“Yeah, great,” MingMing echoes, a half-smile on his lips and slight subduedness to his voice.

He says it casually, but Jun feels the tiniest bit uncomfortable. There’s always this awkward tension, the idea of what could’ve been if MingMing had never left Pledis hanging over his head, and he’s never quite sure if it’s palpable between them or if he’s just conjuring the discomfort in his own brain.

MingMing must sense some fragment of discomfort in this, so to discuss a lighter topic he asks: “So, got any girls in your life?”

Jun hesitates for a moment, because: does he? Because in a vague sense, he does, but the closer he actualizes the idea into reality, the further it is from the truth. At any rate, it’s far too soon to speak about the situation, and it’s been a while since he’s seen MingMing, so even though they were like brothers before Jun’s trust in him is vague and faded around the edges.

“Nah, I don’t have time for it,” Jun replies with an airy nonchalance before sipping from his drink.

A mischievous smile crosses MingMing’s lips, eyes glittering with mirth.

“Oh, so you totally do have one,” MingMing replies assuredly, a conspiratorial joy to his words.

“Ming, you know that’s not a good idea for me right now,” Jun says seriously. Infuriatingly, MingMing’s close-lipped smile stretches into a Cheshire grin. He then rolls the door open, waving to Auntie to beckon her over. She appears moments later in the doorframe, towel flung over her shoulder.

“Auntie, Junhui here denies that he’s got a girl in his life but I, for one, think he’s full of it. Aren’t I right? Do you know anything about this girl?” MingMing asks, folding his hands beneath his chin; he wears a self-satisfied smile and a quirked eyebrow in expectation of her response.

“Perhaps if Junhui won’t tell you, then you’re not supposed to know,” Auntie replies, swatting at MingMing’s shoulder with her towel. He recoils backwards, arms crossing in front of himself defensively and with a surprised _‘ah!’_ before he then sulks at Auntie’s response.

She shuts the door on the pair and MingMing’s quiet for a few minutes, stabbing moodily at his remaining food with his chopsticks at first before looking up at Jun.

“Remember when we used to come here after practice? And it would be so late at night and Auntie would nag us for a hundred years but she’d always give us free dumplings and even when she’d nag us, she’d be holding back a smile ‘cause she was so happy to see us?”

“Yeah, I do,” Jun says, nostalgia sweeping through him.

“Man, I missed that. I missed her. And I missed hanging out with you,” MingMing says with a curt laugh, before casting his eyes down to the table.

“Me too, Ming. I missed you, too,” Jun replies, affection in his voice. 

And it’s true, for the unfortunate now-present gulf between them. Because there is so much history between them yet so much Jun feels like he cannot say. And perhaps their friendship is set to tip over the horizon like the fading sun, and maybe MingMing knows it too, because the distance between them can only grow. It’s an emblem of their youth, days past, and there is no use in mourning it because mourning does no favors towards retrieving what’s already lost. 

In this person there used to be such a strong feeling of home, and maybe Jun’s been a fool to try and make homes out of human beings, as he’s doing and trying to do again with Minghao and Tzuyu, mostly. Because it can never last the way he needs it to.

“Hey, what do you say we go up to the roof for old times’ sake?” MingMing says before standing, the devilish grin back on his face, nostalgia from moments ago already in his rearview.

“Yeah, for old times sake,” Jun echoes, before rising to follow.

 

 

“Let’s play a game!” Somi says, sitting forward on her stomach, clutching a pillow beneath her. All of the Twice girls and some of the IOI girls are gathered together in a hotel room, all done with their late-night practices but still wired from the time difference and the excitement of being abroad.

“Let’s play a game that we can’t play on broadcast,” Yoojung says, a devious smirk gracing her lips.

“Never Have I Ever?” Chaeyoung suggests, slotting in beside Somi.

“Chaeng! Who taught you to play _that?_ ” Jihyo admonishes. Chaeyoung shrugs, looking away evasively.

“Probably Wonwoo. You know how he is,” Nayeon comments noncommittally.

“Hey, don’t be like that,” Sana chimes in, looking up from the braids she’s weaving into Nayeon’s hair.

“He is like that, though,” Nayoung deadpans, and the girls all laugh at the timing and the truth to her comment.

“How do you play?” Momo asks; she’s seated cross-legged on the floor, hanging onto Sana beside her with her arms wrapped around Sana’s shoulders. 

“It’s easy,” Yoojung starts. “You put out 10 fingers and each person goes around the circle saying something that they’ve never done. If you’ve done it, put down a finger. First person to put down all 10 fingers… Wins? Loses?”

“Wins,” Jihyo answers with finality. It’s funny; Tzuyu never would’ve pegged her for that.

Several minutes pass before the girls are able to arrange themselves in a lopsided circle around the living room, some on the floor, some on the couch and other various seats on pillows or chairs.

“Never have I ever been to Japan,” Somi starts. Sana, Momo and Mina whine loudly in protest but Somi pointedly mimes at them to put a finger down to shush them.

“Never have I ever played Never Have I Ever,” Sana says, sticking her tongue out at Somi who rolls her eyes before putting down a finger.

“Never have I ever performed in Europe,” Mina says, to the groans of the IOI girls, all of whom performed at KCON France mere weeks ago.

“I might be wrong about this, but isn’t this game supposed to be more… racy?” Doyeon asks, resting her weight on a palm behind her, one hand with two remaining fingers held aloft.

“Oh, it’ll get there,” Yoojung affirms, a knowing smirk on her lips.

“Well, I’ll start it then,” Sohye says with a shrug. “Never have I ever had alcohol.”

Most, if not all of the girls put fingers down, and all break into nervous, conspiratorial giggles, glancing back and forth between one another.

“Never have I ever had a boyfriend,” Jungyeon says, mumbling her words before casting her eyes to the floor and blushing. A few of the girls put fingers down, notably Jieqiong, Nayeon, and Tzuyu.

“Maknae, waee???” Somi chides Tzuyu teasingly.

“I lived a long life in Taiwan,” Tzuyu answers to the groups gawking. Jihyo snorts, choking on the water she’s sipping.

“Never have I ever been kissed,” Momo says shyly, nuzzling into Sana beside her and hiding in her hair. A decent number of the girls put their fingers down. “What??” Momo exclaims, slapping her hands to the floor. “Why only me??” She groans.

“You spent too much time in the dance studio, unnie,” Tzuyu replies.

“Your time will come,” Sana reassures Momo, petting her hair.

“Ok. Never have I ever had a crush on another idol,” Dahyun says, to which nearly every single person puts a finger down, making eye contact with one another and laughing again. “Seriously, all of you?” Dahyun exclaims, gaping around the circle. The girls laugh again, some hiding their faces, some hitting each other and others leaning on one another for support.

“Your time will come, too, Dahyun,” Sana says through her laugh, holding the back of her hand to her mouth to cover her grin.

“Ok. Ah! I got it. Never have I ever kissed a member of Seventeen,” Jihyo says, looking pointedly at Nayeon.

Nayeon for one looks entirely unfazed, flipping her hair over her shoulder before taking a sip of her drink.

"Park Jihyo, neither have I! So stop looking at me with those accusing eyes!"

"More to the point, Tzuyu, what??"

It’s Jungyeon asking this time, and all of the heads in the room swivel towards Tzuyu, and for a moment she very, very much regrets being truthful.

“I mean… yeah,” Tzuyu replies evasively with a shrug, taking a drink from her water to avoid eye contact.

“I mean, duh, it’s Jun,” Nayeon says. Several of the others nod along.

“Could be Minghao. They always look so _friendly_ together,” Dahyun adds, nudging Nayeon with her elbow and wiggling her eyebrows.

“Did anyone _else_ put down a finger?” Tzuyu interjects, hoping to remove the attention from herself.

The girls glance around the circle and no one else has, so for now Tzuyu boils in her own embarrassment and hopes that the prying will end here.

Though a tiny part of her is pleased that it was guessed so quickly. Because even though Jun's not really hers, she wants to lay her claims now, even if they are so elusive. There’s the implicit understanding that idols will protect one another’s secrets, and she may be nonspecific the implication to the other girls is unmistakable.

Though the situation is tenuous at best, at least there’s comfort in the knowledge that this fragile glass thing is hers alone. Tonight, too, is a wonderful respite in the midst of all of her stresses, and for a moment she can feel like any other 17-year-old, cuddled up in her pajamas with close friends by her side and a boy in her heart. The fundamental uncertainty of her life is in soft focus and for once, everything in the world feels like it’s looking up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/n: So. Um. First off, thank you for being patient. I know that this update took forever and a day and I felt so guilty all month for just leaving it, but inspiration has been hard and life has been pulling me in a million different directions lately. Second off, the original plan for this chapter turned out to be soooooo long that I had to cut it like ¾ of the way through. There’s probably gonna be ANOTHER additional chapter added to this work. (Can you hear that faint sound? It’s the sound of me pulling my own hair out in stress.)
> 
> As always, the comments give me the will to go on, so if you would like that then please comment.


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